Guild Wars 2

This is gonna be an odd one, but there’s always been a white, wavy thing I see in the sky every time I leave a borderland waypoint in hostile territory. I always chalked it up to some remnant but back when the quaggans were around – lightning and whatnot. Thing is, I took a closer took at it today, and noticed that it’s actually some kind of odd spherical object that changes from white to red depending on the time of day. The sphere is only visible when looking at the sky with the right camera angle. The easiest place to do so would be from a borderland waypoint as shown below.

So what that thing? Some remnant of a moon mean to pass over the skybox that didn’t get fully implemented? An accidental icon taken from who knows where? A leftover prank from some long forgotten developer? Thing’s driving me crazy.

Edit: It seems that this thing can be red and white at the same time, too. Huh.
Edit 2: Having looked at it a bit further, I’m now fairly certain that this anomaly is in fact a Bloodlust territory marker. Why I can see it from spawn I have no idea.

If I had to take a guess, I’d say it’s the bloodlust territory marker for Battle’s Hollow.

Tried cranking up the old boombox today, but got no sound. The summoning sound is there, and the channel switch sound, but no music, even with all audio channels set to max.

I can still bring the funk with my menagerie of instruments, but tunes are essential to any blob event.

Yep, they’re looking to the left for some reason.

I’m very confused by the current set-up of outfits in the game.

In the old system, each town clothing item was treated as a separate entity with separate dyes. You could combine pieces from multiple outfits this way and carefully tailor the dye design.

In the current system, outfits, such as Mad King Thorn and Fancy Winter Clothes, work as bundles with only 4 dimensions of dye alteration.

The recent patch brought in combat capability to these clothes, which I am very happy about, but it also removed clothing functionality I once enjoyed. More importantly, it removed functionality that I had purchased the clothes for in the first place. I feel my purchases have been slighted.

I understand that new outfit capabilities are very likely in the works. On that note, can I expect to wear pieces from multiple outfits, with independent dye capability, ever again?

This thing is great. The only way I could be happier is if it came in an Omega Golem variant. The recent golem-oriented updates fall right into my character niche, and each has had its comical splendor.

Using a Harp or Flute removes the selfless/thoughtless potion buffs. A great pity, considering the possibilities of cherubs and jazz demons.

Wholeheartedly agreed. The immersive nature of this patch is palpable as you go about listening and talking to citizens.

The price of Thresher-Sickle 5000 is the standard 1000 Gems for unlimited tools.

Instead of reorienting to be above the golem, the Selfless potion halo hovers above the ground between a golem’s legs, making a sortof shiny hula hoop for tiny folk.

thaooo.5320:

Im Mudbone.1437:

I have seen numerous DEV’s playing the game since starting in the BETA for GW2 and I would think there are several of those with GM abilities.

Of course you have, you’re on stackgate. Devs really only reside there and stacked quarry.

As a member of Jade Quarry, I have to say I’ve never seen an in-game dev on the server. I hear constant tales of Blackgate presence, though.

mercury ranique.2170:

And yes it is financially. A single customer support ticket (or interference off a GM) will cost bout 10 USD on average (this includes overhead, costs for equipment, computer systems, office space, etc etc). for a subscription fee based game this is not an issue.

Thanks for that interesting bit of information, but would it be possible for you to go into more detail as to how you came to that value? I find it astonishing that a single support ticket could raise costs so much, especially since I’ve seen games with purely voluntary community management staff (granted, that’s not to the same extent as game support).

First laugh of the day, thanks!

Dabrixmgp.4758:

so then who are all the A-Net guys with the little red icon next to their name I have seen 4-5 times during LA events running around?

As I understand it those are simply game developers in game, not necessarily GMs.

Honest, curious question.

I’ve dealt with the Anet Support team before. Great guys, really. They respond expediently for a AAA MMO, and almost act as GMs in their own right for most problems. I’m still intrigued by the lack of GMs in the game, though. Simply can’t put my finger on why.

I can’t claim it to be a financial issue. GW2 made $32 million in the 4th quarter of 2013 compared to its $112 million in the 2012 quarter the game released (and I can’t tell if that’s just game-access sales or counting in-game sales, too). For a game that hasn’t launched in China, that ain’t bad. Let also have a look at this statement on player retention by the producer of Final Fantasy 14:

“MMORPGs that launched after 2008 with a subscription based model retained a maximum of 35% of their users during the first month of subscriptions. However, FFXIV: ARR has surpassed this number by a wide margin.”

From what I can tell, the GW2 population is thriving from its initial 3.5 million player injection with every server purportedly on “high” player count. While the retention rate is unknown to me, GW2 follows a common trend with other MMO’s on Google Trends, leading me to believe that it should be performing close to competition in retention.

So, whats the deal? Are GM’s just not an NCSoft thing? Does the support team take care of everything well enough on their own? Does ArenaNet not see a need for GM’s?

Personally, I find the game has an exploitative nature that could be stymied by GMs. We’ve already seen the explosive power of duplication exploits in the form of Omega Golems, and anyone who has played WvW long enough has been the victim of a wall clipper or zoom hacker. The game also has a decent amount of bug issues on any release day due to the fast-pace of said releases. Never hurts to have a GM around to kick a player out of his combat-stuck hole in the ground or reset an invulnerable mob.

What do you think? Is the support team enough on its own? Would GMs be a good addition?

Carighan.6758:

Arikyali.5804:

You can get bones from rubble piles? Wow…that’s just…discouraging. And sad.

I know. Makes you feel really crap. And you use them as a weapon!

I dunno man, my remains being used to deliver the killing bow to the guy that did me in? That’s some serious vengeance material.

yes
incredibly so

250 heirlooms
Puts horns on your character in some way.

I can’t be the only one that was too tired after grinding Tempered Spinal Blades and ended up selecting the wrong stat category. Will a support ticket help in any way, or am I stuck with the wrong stats until I grind a new pair / get them infused?

I’m a bit worried that a new chest-mesh will be needed to make the blue skin toggle-able. The females seem to have an increase in the gazonga area.

The Havoc’s Heir truly is chaotic – the skritt there must love their Rat’s Nest! If it all possible, I would swap the ship up to a longer or wider model. Sharp camera cuts, twisting directional demands and NPC’s so close that you mis-choose them is an issue not seen within the Royal Terrace.

As a side note, the Royal Terrace now needs an activity NPC for equivalence of purchase. This is the only utility boon of the Havoc’s Heir.

The medium armour looks considerably like light armour. The light armour looks pretty heavy. I can understand the concept of rarer out-of-place armours, but I worry the medium armour is going to find low demand.

Not really sure if this counts as a bug, but at 7:13 PM Eastern Time, the entirety of Guild Wars 2 went to 800 ping on the servers with massively chaotic occurrences. From Jade Quarry, we have a East Bay Gate that looks reinforced from the inside, wood from the outside, and didn’t break at 0% hp.

I heard a rumor that Golem Mastery might become a thing with Edge of the Mist son the way and other WvW updates, but I can’t seem to find any news on it anywhere. As a golem driving enthusiast, I’d love to hear if there’s been any talk about it as a possibility.

The recent patch seems to have done something to the Mariner’s Horn. when played, it lacks the proper burst of sound at the start of the note. The trumpet sounds improperly muffled now.

,

Golem Mastery
Don’t even care what is in it

When you put 3 points into Ballista Mastery, you unlock “Swift Bolt”. The wiki states that this is the same as Improved Ballista shot. Does this mean a third point in Ballista Mastery is completely useless if you are on a Superior Ballista? Does the bolt itself not go any faster?

For the life of me, I cannot understand how 9 measly ores a day you can’t make anything useful with which leaves you in an eternal sinkhole is convenient. With the gold you would get from $10 , you could purchase more ores than you would need in months, if not a year.

“More nodes to mine” isn’t even a feasible argument. You can get ALL these ores faster than going to your home instance by taking a few steps out of your WvW spawn, and get MORE ores.

The only reason to acquire these ores is of a collector-minded nature, which I could understand. The only thing I can theorize as to why Anet wouldn’t bring the price down to increase demand is that they fear too low a price will result in too many gold-to-gem purchases and not enough dollar purchases. This is an understandable concern, but relies on a broken principle that many gold converters will “suck it up” and purchase with dollars. In my experience, the massive majority of free-play minded players stay that way under all circumstance.

cranked.3812:

So, you feel that things are improperly priced very often in the gem store and yet you still spend 100’s of dollars on gems?

Why do you think things are “improperly priced” (read: overpriced) all the time? It’s because people like you keep throwing your money at anet.

Then, somehow, you have the nerve to come here and complain.

As you can see, I make assessment on whether or not something is worth the cost. There are convenience items that fall into acceptable price parameters. This is not one of them.

Pistol whip. High Initiative = spam. Takes a moment to cast, does a small stun, then does frontal conic damage while evading. Haste makes it go faster. Don’t stand in it. Not a bug.

Fleet Shadow gives only a 33% speed boost in or outside of combat. Tooltip states 50%.

Wanze.8410:

Again, how you manage to pay waypoint costs towards your home instance in any mayor city is beyond me. Same goes for your expectation to buy any ptw items on the gem store.

I was not aware that you could reach home instances for free, thanks for the information.

I’d also be heavily against pay-to-win items. I currently find the convenience to cost ratio as unfathomable. I also see no convenience, as the ores are easily acquirable via alternatives.

Edit: I’ve been thinking about what you said in that there was no waypoint cost. Would this entail Loading into the mists, loading into Lion’s Arch, walking through a portal, loading into the city, then loading into the home instance? That seems like a considerable time-cost, granted, it is variable for different users.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I think these Gem Store items are reasonably priced for the convenience they offer.

I’d love to hear the debate for this, as I truly can’t devise a way the convenience makes any sense.

More to the point, I can’t figure out why anyone would teleport home to get 3 copper, silver, and gold. The TP would give you these items, and it takes literally years to pay off the initial cost.

I may be missing part of the argument, and I’d like to be enlightened on that. Currently, all I see are 3 copper, silver, and gold ores a day for 800 gems.

@ Wanze: The only way I can figure you get home for free is to load the Mists, load Lion’s Arch, load a home city, then load a home instance. These can be very expensive time-wise.

I understand the housing gameplay part of your buying process, but praytell, what is convenient about paying to waypoint to your home in order to mine these ores? How many ores? Won’t it take eternity to make the cost justified?

Metallic Primer
Best Value Cost: 7.69 Gold or $1.31
A food that costs more than 7.69 gold per 12 hours must be found to justify cost.

Basic Ore Node Pack
Cost: 58.56 Gold or $10
Justifiable cost is unthinkable. Waypoint cost alone makes the mind boggle.
__________________________________________________________________
I am a prolific user of the Gem Store, using well over a hundred dollars. The market will speak for itself, and these items will be ousted, but the gall of the man in charge who priced these products is unbelievable.

You are sending a heavily negative message to your consumer. Whoever OK’d this either did not review prices or is horrendous at reviewing. What’s more regrettable is that these improper pricing concerns happen consistently. Please, if you don’t have someone, get someone dedicated to deliberating these prices.

So we start off with the old “Glowy armour makes square artifacts in stealth”. Radiant gear, Zephyr helms etc. Ok, not so bad.

Then, we use a ghostly food transformation to get a better look at what those artifacts really are.

Woah. Ok. Now I’m surrounded by eyeless square images of my face’s game file. Seems like there are some armour images in there, too.

To the 10 SBI Omegas that just died in YBBL Hills, I hope you enjoyed my game of “One of These Things is not Like the Other” wherein I beat the living hell out of you in an Omega while hiding in your carcasses.

The Flame armours have a lot of controversy about them, but I’d like to point out what I view as a design flaw. In the attached picture, you can see that the male version of the armour has a very large dead space on the bottom half of his coat with no form of flame. The female, on the other hand, has a series of flame vents on the bottom half that provide a pleasing aesthetic and keep the amount of flame around the entire coat more balanced. This dead space makes the male version look more bulky, and leaves a rather ugly splotch of simple cloth on an otherwise fiery chestpiece.

I would also suggest that players be given the ability to directly test dyes on gem store purchases, as it makes a massive difference in whether or not the player will be interested in an item. Currently, the system copies your current dye to the item. This can lead to garish first impressions if the dyes don’t pass over well – enough to dissuade a potential buyer from testing the dyes via altering his current armour. Having a dye-change system built directly into the gem store will likely boost sales.

I don’t see much issue in the gem store, myself. Whether or not you deem Mr. Sparkles worth 50 smackeroonies is up to you. Personally, it’s Christmas time, and I find it was likely that I’d purchase those gems over a period of time anyway. I’m currently sitting on the 4000 I just bought, as I’m not overly enticed at what’s currently in the store (I already own some things) and gem price is accelerating faster than commodity prices (based on a goods bundle).

Serenity.8246:

We had one of those too, held the golems for ransom, in fact and then jumped them off of Hills when it was obvious no one would pay (or was really paying attention since garrison was being hit at the time). I think that one was a home grown clown, though.

I was once held hostage by an enemy zerg. As we attacked 2nd place borderland’s SW tower, a zerg of 15 3rd placers killed my escorts. They beat my Omega down to 15K Hp, and when I fled on foot, they invited me to their party, stating I was now their ‘hostage’ and had to repay them.

They proceeded to use my golem to batter down and capture SW tower, then shatter the wall of Bay, at which point I was released. I remember one of them commented, “Your debt is repaid, Jack Sparrow” before they dropped party.

logs.1493:

Pray tell, were you the fellow last night that was hacking the omega golem? We ran into an invincible golem all over the map last night that moved faster than any player and mysteriously regenerated health when we would attempt to kill it.

Here’s a screen of a Yaks bend thief driving an omega golem with some suspicious guild claiming buffs outside bay, far away from any Yaks bend towers or keeps.

Now unfortunately I don’t have any video of the golem regenerating health, but that’s not saying someone else doesn’t.

Good evening,

That does appear to be me in a failed attempt to survive after smacking a Bay gate – I had moved in with the misinformation that no one was home. As for the guild buffs, golems just /do/ that. I don’t try to understand gypsy magic.

As for your comment on regeneration, no. I make a lot of golems. Lots of lots. The server does too. What you saw as regeneration was me simply entering fresh golems before returning to the fray. The banged up golems are kept in keeps and garrisons for defense purposes. The golems at lower HP % are used for higher risk jobs or group golem rushes.

Greetings.

I am Gray Drury, the golem driver. Tonight, 10 SBI Omega Seige Golems attacked Yak’s Bend Bay. They melted through the Southeastern gate like butter. As they awaited mesmer port to the South inner gate, I stealthed my Omega Golem in a shadow refuge. It seemed certain that Bay was to fall.

I proceeded to rush my golem, stealthed, into the enemy mass of Omegas. Positioning myself to be facing the same direction as them, I began aim directly down, buckling their chassis with rocket fire, flamethrower blasts, and ballistic barrages. It would seem I was unnoticed except by scant passerby, as the Omegas accepted me into their family like a lost kitten.

I killed that family. I slaughtered the SBI Omegas that surrounded me like an infectious computer virus taking over of their own machines. As they lay melted and scratched on the floor, SBI and EB forces were routed out of Yak’s Bend Bay. My golem survived at 7k HP , then eventually fell in further combat.

If you ever see an Omega seemingly mindlessly wandering through the map. If you ever peek above a tower’s gate to see an Omega standing on the inside, waiting. If you ever hear the sound of an unstealthing thief, then the pounding resonance of a metal stump -

Run.

I am Gray Drury, golem driver of Yak’s Bend, and I am coming for you.

Beep boop.

Riava.7985:

40 golems, you took one keep… why didnt you go for your buddy IOJ? Good job on the overcompensation guys :P

IoJ Keep , Veloka, and Ogrewatch were assaulted and taken around the time of the above post. It was by no means an effcient use, but a fun one for some.

Golems on Parade. Not really an accomplishment of tactics, just showing them. Chris Goes Boom of [One] constructed them.

(some foul language from the teamspeakers)
60 Golems created.
NSP Keep assaulted. Taken. Port to SM.
IoK Keep assaulted. Taken. 25% golems lost to arrow carts and a distinct lack of dodging.
Veloka Assaulted. Majority of golems lost to “man-moding” the gate underneath burning oil. Taken.
Ogrewatch Assaulted. Remaining golems generally dismantled.
Survivors: Omega 50%. 3 Alphas.

The November 1st fix, “Fixed a bug that prevented some mouse-button key-bindings that use modifier keys from working properly”, has broken my ability to use my mouse keys. I use a Steelseries gaming mouse as seen here : http://steelseries.com/us/products/games/world-of-warcraft/world-of-warcraft-mmo-gaming-mouse

The game no longer recognizes any mouse buttons beyond the basic 5. This is highly detrimental to my desired form of play, and would be catastrophic for any disabled persons.

This week posed a challenge, and that was great. I think the main thing for YB to take from FA is the obsessive nature of re-capping in the PPT invuln window. We’re not ignorant of this act, but our server has had no reason to focus on it due to our majority stomp or be stomped match-ups. We’d be better off if we started organizing groups to start at far distances then work towards clutch, near-proximity towers to the enemy near tick time.

That said, I had fun beeping the boops in my Omega this week, and got some good zerg defense experience. Thanks for the bouts!

I find the finishing animation on the Nightmare Court enemies to be a visceral experience, and I think Anet has learned the proper % of enemies that should be “downable”. In Scarlet’s robotic rampage, it was tiresome to stomp every gear, so everyone mostly let them respawn. Here, it’s more like a token reward and less like a painful chore. Not to mention it makes the enemies feel more serious in that they could potentially get up.

To all of the FA we just slaughtered in YBBL bay, thank you for this Keg of World Experience.

I get very thirsty in the Omega golem.

Did anyone else cringe at this line?

First off, it’s a cinematic. I can /see/ the magic crackling around her fingers if it is. Which it isn’t. It’s actually flowing quite smoothly around her floating symbol.

You have a dynamic where two characters offset each other’s personalities, and instead of focusing on dialogue, you told me what I was seeing.

Was the writer in a hurry? Is there a QA screening? What is this sad narrative state you keep handing me?

Killing a player in Southsun Survival causes nothing to drop from their person. This massively alters the methodology of the game by making pacifist play far more beneficial than it already was. The ability to hoard rations and flee off the map has gone from sound tactic to the only way to win.