Guild Wars 2

This is not so much a bug report, as a follow-up to numerous bug reports submitted by my patcher upon crashing.

GW2.exe kept crashing when it tried to update, and the error report had “semaphore timeout period has expired” in the details.

Turns out the issue isn’t with Guild Wars 2, but that a part of the GW2.dat file (being so huge) was in a part of the HD that had an error of some sort.

(Not an IT professional here, my understanding is rough.)

Using CHKDSK with Administrator privileges and the /f flag fixed whatever the issue was with the HD, and the patch was successful.

Just letting this be known.

Lysico.4906:

Not saying the warhorn is bad, but don’t use it for fights is all. just bag it before you aer doing events and hearts.

Warhorn 5 weakens enemies (50% damage) and gives everybody endurance. What’s wrong with the horn?

Moddo.7105:

Ever hear of strawman argument? Congrats you just made one :p. Read what person said “Both root the character” now read what you said "Hundred blades does not root the target. " congrats you won your argument over something he never said.

He did not make a strawman, actually.

The original argument is that Hundred Blades is equivalent to Pistol Whip, and should be nerfed if Pistol Whip was nerfed. This argument was based entirely on the fact that they are both channeled and root the caster.

He merely countered that argument by pointing out that the Stun portion of Pistol Whip makes it a stronger skill than Hundred Blades. Something conveniently ignored by the one he was replying to, since that would undermine his premise.

It’s like somebody saying that Israel and Palestine have no reason not to get along, because most of them can speak English. Pointing out their political, religious, and historical issues is a valid way to counter that argument.

oflow.2157:

you’re all overlooking the fact that a warrior has better regen thru signets than other classes have thru heals

Try to back up this assertion with numbers, please.

The signet doesn’t heal that much unless you’re stacking healing power. The reason many carry it is if they can heal through other means, like shouts. My shortbow ranger heals much better with her healing spring.

illgot.1056:

didn’t people grind these Legendaries knowing they wouldn’t be upgraded?

No.
They were the best gear. The concept of “upgrading” did not exist.
Therefore absolutely no one knew if they would or would not be upgraded.

(I don’t have one myself, it’s a ridiculous amount of work I can’t be bothered to do.)

Answer was edited. I guess the server status is about accounts on that server, not people currently online on that server.

CC Eva wrote:

Connor, when you see a server FULL means that the people who’ve chosen that server as theirs, or players who have moved to that particular server, have reached the cap, independently of where did they create their accounts.

Mystfit.8309:

I found my Hall of Monuments over on GW. have 3 points

I have 5!

Only because I had 3 characters already at EotN, so I could unlock three different monuments.

So I’m missing the helmet for the heritage armor set.

Nobody used “toon” back in MUDs.
I recall already hearing “toon” back in The Realm and Meridian 59 though, which would be in around 1995 and your characters really did look like cartoons.

Personally, I think “char” sounds really weird to say. I either say “toon” or “character”.

I highly recommend this site: http://gw2cartographers.com/
Useful for general navigation, but in this case you want to hit the buttons that will show the locations for certain pets.

Responses from another thread:
Damien94 wrote:

You have to read carefully. Look at this:

For example, if a player creates an account in Vizunah Square and then moves to Baruch Bay, then all the characters of this player will go to Baruch Bay and he will be counted among the total amount of players of Baruch.

Server status is still referring total player population. It does not mean currently logged in players. For example, even though I quit playing over a month ago, my account still counts towards the population of Sea of Sorrows.

Katzachan wrote:

It’s nice to see Arenanet finally confirming what we already knew, the server full meaning was always characters created. We can finally put this stupid idea it was currently playing numbers to rest.

NicoGrimm wrote:

Damien brings up a good point. The post is kinda weirdly worded, and can be taken either way.

Etharin wrote:

A community rep for a company that outsources all CS probably doesn’t have a clue to what it really means anyway which is why they couldn’t just straight up say it’s the amount of players logged into a server.

mlacen wrote:

Contradictory information directly from Arena net themselves.

Was it really so hard to just (as Etharin puts it) straight out say it’s players currently logged in, without adding extraneous paragraphs?

ANet locked the previous topic after giving an ambiguous, apparently self-contradictory answer that did nothing but stir up more debate.

CC Eva wrote:

“Connor, when you see a server FULL means that it is full from people actually playing there at the moment, independently of where did they create their accounts. For example, if a player creates an account in Vizunah Square and then moves to Baruch Bay, then all the characters of this player will go to Baruch Bay and he will be counted among the total amount of players of Baruch.”

The statement “when you see a server FULL means that it is full from people actually playing there at the moment” implies the status counts players online. This would be clear and unambiguous if that was all ANet said. No one would be able to say otherwise.

As it stands, detractors then point out that the paragraph immediately following talks about accounts on servers:

“For example, if a player creates an account in Vizunah Square and then moves to Baruch Bay, then all the characters of this player will go to Baruch Bay and he will be counted among the total amount of players of Baruch.”

Why? Why would you possibly think that is a good example? That is not an example at all of “server population status is players online”, the example is entirely about “active accounts on a server”!

The entire debate (over at least 3 other forums I’ve checked) is about if the server population status is about players online or active accounts (on that server). It’s like you guys are either not paying attention to the topic or to what you’re saying!

I didn’t mean to beat it. After about half an hour though, it was like “I already learned the first half! I can’t stop now or my efforts would have been wasted!”

I would hope that they extend the event a little, it would suck for some players to be unable to finish their tomes just because they lived in NYC or something. Kind of like being kicked when they’re down. :-\

Human Warrior 34, no relevant passives. Beat it once then quit in relief.

Have you tried a different head item? Maybe the animation is messed up from a helmet/mask/whatever?

What’s confusing me (about what he’s trying to say) is that if you get closer (reduce distance) then you also end up having a higher magnification with a narrower angle of view. There shouldn’t be any difference between “camera distance” and “camera zoom”, since zoom is essentially reducing the apparent distance.

I would think the camera equivalent to FoV would be fisheye lenses, which is different from “distance” and “zoom”.

Finally sat down last night and played with the intention of trying to succeed (previously I had only given it 15 minutes to check it out). It took me roughly 2.5 hours – and frankly, a Norn wearing a robe was an issue for me.

It was like there were three things to focus on:
1. Positioning – don’t jump too quickly, don’t walk off
2. Timing – don’t be too slow
3. Norn in Robe – must outrun him, or I can’t see my character at all.

I failed exactly three times because my character (average height human male) completely disappeared into him, and I couldn’t tell if I was positioned appropriately for the jump, resulting in falling short. It was only after I got the beginning portions down perfectly, and was able to outrun him by 5-6 body widths that the challenge went from “see where I am” to “jumping puzzle”.

Annoying as heck, but I got my slippers so whatever.

Tuccos.8592:

i started a elem. i got bored by the slow attack speed on all basic auto weapon skills…

Elementalists are all about switching attunements to burn the cooldowns on their spells. You should almost never be using the basic attack – I’m guessing you didn’t even hit level 10.

Algreg.3629:

I mean, even the standard MMO lingo word for a bad build is kittened, why, because of that leatherdude in Pulp Fiction?

That word is used to refer to bad builds in a derogatory manner because it is a bad word: offensive , slang ( US ), ( Canadian ) a physically disabled person, esp one who is lame

Pulp Fiction is irrelevant. I hope you don’t look to pop culture to learn the definition of words, or you’d think “twilight” is defined as “poorly written drivel”.

Eh, I fell twice because all I could see was Charr kitten I fell dozens of times from me sucking, so I never complained about it much. =P

Account.9832:

Just being a terminology nazi for a second here:

Camera distance and zoom are different things.

Wait, what? I don’t get it.

On my camera (physical in-real-life camera) there is no difference between me moving closer to my target, or just zooming in via a telescopic lens. Both will result in a larger image (in terms of magnification) with a smaller area captured.

What’s the difference here?

My level 25 died about 6 times total, each death being one-shot. There’s like 20 people wandering around when you get close to the right area though, so it wasn’t too big a deal. Just strip yourself naked when you reach the areas that way out-level you so you don’t get kittened by repair bills.

I have to admit that when I was running for the last page, the fact that if I stopped for half a second would get me killed was rather exhilarating.

I killed the Mad King in a random PUG at level 29. Actually went from 29 to 31 just from that dungeon with PUGs, no group had more than two level 80s. We never lost, even when one guy logged off without leaving the party and we were a man down.

The Chaar appear to have adopted this holiday. The children, at least:
“It’s Hellow… Halla… it’s Candy Day!”

Didn’t they say it was a server thing, and they’re still working on tweaking the data sent to our clients?

The hardest part was surviving the Ascalon ghosts to reach the map transition.

Once there, you just need to follow the road. If you come across a spider, you took a wrong turn and will die in one hit.

precisioNist.2071:

Aside from my sniper rifle as my main weapon, I use Axe/ Warhorn as my offhand set for buffs and AoE capabilities. I agree Warhorn is awesome.

I switched to this from Sword/Warhorn as my secondary. I was going to stack Bleeds, but I found the Axe’s attacks and Fury to be better than the Sword’s, especially since if somebody is fleeing, I can always throw a Crippling attack or just switch back to Rifle and shoot them in the back.

I believe the mechanic is intended to not negate spikes. Before I go on, allow me to restate – a Glancing Blow deals 50% damage.

Let’s ignore Critical Hits and say the enemy has two attacks – one that deals game equal to 100% of your life, and one that deals damage equal to 10% of your life. Obviously, to stay alive you must dodge the one that can kill you in one hit.

If Weakened causes them have a 25% damage reduction, then they would only hit for 75% and 7.5% of your life respectively, meaning you don’t need to dodge. However, if you have a 50% chance of turning them into Glancing Blows, this essentially means the enemy has four attacks – the big ones (which share an animation) that deal 100% and 50% of your life, and the small ones (which share an animation) that deal 10% and 5% of your life. Now you can’t just ignore the heavy attack – you still need to dodge, because there’s a 50% chance it will kill you.

Same net damage output, but considerable difference in how they affect the flow of combat.

Golradaer.5934:

Thank you! Out of curiosity, did you find the discussion of traits/abilities in the context of specific builds more or less useful than the general traits and utilities sections?

Hm… I think both were equally useful.

It seems to me the latter section gives a rundown of the individual tools available and can be done with them, while the former section gives a rundown of possible desired goals and how to achieve them. In other words, the former section is “how to build to do what you want” and the latter section is “what else you can do with that build”.

Since I’m not explicitly following your builds, the build-specific sections advised me about synergies and how to use things, while the general sections advised me of possible alternatives for things I didn’t want.

Hang on, hang on, I have a question!

Somebody mentioned that it’s not illegal for the gold farmers, just against the TOS, and that due to anti-trust laws it would in fact be illegal to prosecute them.

However… isn’t it illegal to profit off of somebody else’s IP?

To add on to that, all the rewards for finishing a starting area became preset amounts we get after completing them.

Exactly how hard would have been to fix Opening Strike to have a range of 1500 (longbow) instead of 900? Nevermind the other factors that make it fail to activate most of the time, but an unlisted minimum range of 900 is ridiculous for something relevant to all the minor traits in Marksmanship.

Eh, it seems like a standard pose to me, like the Wellington Monument.

Biggest problem is the city is flattened onto a single layer map, making it a PitA to explore. Nice city, horrible layout if you haven’t already 100% it once.

The idea that Chinese ministers have open and frank discussions about human rights and technology with foreigners is laughable to myself and others who fled from China, and moreso to the hundreds of thousands who continue to fight against the censorship and oppression in the totalitarian system of the Mainland, where an academic suggesting that profits may increase if farmers could own their own land is dissappeared for sedition.

But I digress…

Bruno Sardine.2907:

@Dark
You’re analogy is talking about finite manufactured goods sold by a legit vendor/producer vs. people stealing those goods and selling them…

Eh, then pirated software then. Both the legit vendor and the illegitimate vendor have roughly the same production costs in burning DVDs and printing jewel cases. The illegitimate vendor is acquiring the goods through illegitimate means, and distribution is also illegal. Botting and selling of gold are two separate offenses against the ToS. A better analogy?

ounkeo.9138:

Yes they do. They also aren’t catching all of them. I know because I know a lot of people who have bought gold and they are still around despite the warning on the launcher. In fact, I would say they haven’t even caught most of them.

How is this a problem? They don’t catch everyone who breaks the laws in meatspace either. The potential of being caught and punished is a deterrent in and of itself.

The only times I’ve beaten this encounter was with at least 8-10 other people. She’s got this multi-target harpoon that hits hard, drags, and then stuns (iirc) you in her point blank poison cloud.

Doesn’t instant kill, but close enough.

I suppose they want to keep all the zones active, rather than just people sticking around the level 80 areas.

This means that new players would see people wandering around, and have people to help with DEs and such.

Lutinz.6915:

Finally Lion’s Arch is held together by one of the most powerful motivators of all: Greed.

In the Black Citadel, there’s a conversation between Charr talking about this.

One of them is like, “We have the best army, why don’t we just take what we want?” He gets berated for being stupid and short-sighted, and she goes on a mini-lecture. I think this was near the LA portal. At the time I was busy being frustrated trying to get the PoIs, though.

You know, I would have thought it’s better to have a layer of rough fur than just exposed skin. It’s practically built-in protection – that flying ember lands on your fur rather than your skin.

Man, you guys are more than welcome to help kill Krait Witches. Those buggers are so freaking kitten.

That said, I feel kind of guilty I once turned in half the rabbits in that DE in Queensdale. It occurs to me that some of those people standing there probably didn’t get any rabbits.

Nowadays I never turn in those “kill and collect” things until near the end, when it seems like everybody had enough.

LithePanther.5027:

As unpopular as my opinion is, I will never hold back in any low-level event. And the reason is low-level loot sells…and sells for quite a lot.

That’s not just unpopular, but pointless. All you need to do is tag the enemy and you’ll get the loot. It’s more efficient to spread your effort and just slap everything then it is to try and kill them.

Grouping, being social, and cooperation are all separate things.

The lack of forced grouping does not prevent people from being social – if they didn’t want to talk, they probably wouldn’t anyway.

The mechanics encourage more cooperation because you don’t need to be part of an arbitrary group to cooperate on content, and you don’t have to sit out if somebody else is doing something. Can you imagine if this happened in real life? If an old lady is struggling with her groceries, random people would help her out – and they’d all go home with their own copy of her groceries. Everybody would help everybody else all the time!

All grouping does now is let people stick together and continue to cooperate for extended periods – and that’s fine.

They have this horrible attack where they launch a harpoon at multiple people, dragging them in towards her poison cloud. Then they rip your face off.

Hm… actually, it would be nice if they had small race-relevant daily events in each of the cities. Then we’d get people moving around all the time, which would help make all the cities look busy.

Given that ANet makes money for new accounts, but not for the continued existence of old accounts who aren’t buying from them, it would be very productive for them to ban people violating the TOS and buying gold from third parties.

It’s cheaper to buy electronics that “fell of the back of the truck” then to get it legitimately. That doesn’t mean Samsung should be competing with those prices. The buyers are guilty of possession of stolen goods – if they knew it was stolen, then it’s a misdemeanor or felony, if they didn’t know then it’s just confiscated and returned to the owner. They still eat up the loss either way, because the newly arrested crook isn’t going to be giving them a refund.

They can’t always find these people, but they should and do try, and prosecute them once they are found.

Darx.9842:

Hammers are also hung the wrong way. It doesnt make any sense for the head of the hammer to be up over your shoulder, all that weight would be uncomfortable.

I disagree, I think it’s more comfortable having weight over the shoulders.

I would have thought Prohibition was a poor analogy because alcohol is a staple of humanity, from at least as far back as the Neolithic Era. For most of history, it was certainly safer to store and drink alcoholic beverages than water – that’s actually the history of some of those 2% alcohol beers. Comparatively, most of us don’t need to buy Gold, we earn our own by playing the game.

Further, a majority opposed the ban (which was only put through due to pressure exerted by religious fanatics), and bootleggers were rather romanticized. Here, there would be little opposition from the majority, and most hate gold farmers and bots with a passion.

Perhaps most pertinently, Prohibition only banned the sale and manufacture of alcohol, not the consumption of alcohol. In essence, it’s already happening – gold farming and selling is not allowed. The analogy is deeply flawed, given that the Vendetta’s proposal is about outlawing the purchase of gold.

Look on the bright side, you found one of the rare armors that don’t clip with the tail.

I think the Krait Witch isn’t supposed to have many event spawns, the problem is that when people are dodging her ridiculous attacks (seriously? This is a level 10 event?) she inevitably gets outside the village, and the massive crowd of fast spawning kraits outside start stabbing players in the back.

Naminator.9316

If you are gaming on a 15-17 inch monitor or laptop then the FOV will not bother you. I game on a 27 inch monitor and this FOV is a pain in the kitten

Huh, that makes sense. I was thinking about 1080p monitors (since that’s what HD movies get up to, which I notice for… reasons).

What’s the native resolution on that monster, 2560×1600?

Also, apparently I’m trolling. Such a good one not even I noticed. Whatever. It can’t possibly be that I’m actually questioning how people dealt with distortion, since I spent a good hour trying to minimize it when I played TF2.

The Krait Witch in Caledon Forest is a PitA. I’ve wandered through all the 1-15 zones (for zone completion), and she’s easily the toughest group event boss, especially if she gets out of the village (which always happens since people are dodging), at which point you have to deal with constantly spawning adds. I’ve killed her 2-3 times, and I only ever bother engaging if there’s at least another half dozen players running in that direction.

Haven’t had problems with the Personal Story, though it may depend on which one you picked.

We don’t want the Krytan Drakehounds and White Wolves, Jhu. The whole point is the F2 ability.

Gransasso.9842:

1)sharp stone + splitblade = in this way splitblade consume all charges from sharpstone, but in close combat you can transfer 10 stacks of bleed in 1 shot to 1 target.

Have you actually managed to stick 10 stacks onto a target? The bug list says:

Sharpening Stone will only apply 1 bleed on abilities that fire multiple projectiles (Splitblade, Poison Volley, etc), but use additional charges if hit