Guild Wars 2

I should add and is probably better as a new reply, that I’d be willing to pay to have story one be permanent content. As long as the spirit of design of the content is well transferred to work as content that can be revisited in the spirit of the story journal. After all nobody wants parts of it butchered beyond recognition of what it was originally to be a part of the story. Which is why I posted as much info as I did here in regard to each part of story one. I believe it quite feasible to make it happen and much if not all the groundwork is already in the game that is needed to make it a reality.

Tekoneiric.6817:

I think they need to take a cue from GW1 with the Pre/Post searing. As a character’s story evolves the instances of the maps they get should change. They need to scrub references to characters who die from maps unless it’s an story instance. If you have killed Zhaitan then you should get the affected maps that reflect his demise. It would make for interesting stories in Orr as factions via for control of the map. They could have some residual forces of Zhaitan trying to establish a power base around some lesser dragons. If someone didn’t do LWS1 then they should get old LA. If they have but not some rebuild story then they get the trashed one, etc. That IMHO is a living world.

The persistent maps should always reflect the present conditions and circumstances of the world. They sort of already have done this. The problem is they leave other stuff in limbo that already happened like the people of the world don’t care that it has happened. Per my example of Kessex Hills. It’s present state spans multiple moments in time. I would think by now any lingering toxicity would have been cleaned up by the efforts of the one or more hearts who tasked the clean up. And other stuff I mention. We have now defeated the dragon that caused the problem with fort in the zone as well. Shouldn’t they be cleaning it up now? And what about all those waypoints and other placed destroyed by it. Shouldn’t they be getting cleaned up. And what about all the undead. Their numbers should have virtually disappeared now that Zhaitan has been defeated and all this time has passed.

RoseofGilead.8907:

The problem with this idea is it would cut down map populations even more than they already are. This would be especially problematic in already-lower-population zones such as Kessex Hills (which had the Tower of Nightmares stuff from S1) and Lornar’s Pass (Marionette). So, to make that work, entire zones would have to become solo (or Party) instances like they were in GW1, which is what Anet tried to avoid when doing GW2; they want open world with other players in all zones rather than personalized instances for every explorable area.

I believe you misunderstand. The persistent maps should always reflect the present conditions and circumstances of the world. There is nothing fracturing the population as there is not multiple persistent stats of one or more zones. All players do hearts, waypoints, POIs, vistas, events in the map as a reflection of the present conditions and circumstances or the map and world.

The past gets encapsulated into story telling instances much like the existing personal story and story two. In some parts of of story one an entire zone would have a story instance to tell the story as the content of that chapter spanned a whole zone. See my above as brief as possible concept of story one as story instances for the story journal. The only difference being that some are made to be group story instances and such as outlined in my reply about each chapter.

I came here to see if anyone else was having this problem. I have been at this for a week now and succeeded once. The events are not designed very well or they broke the design when they made the ley drops exist for all possible players. Whatever the case may be it appears that even organized groups killing the golems fail regularly at this. I’ll try checking LFG to see if that helps optimize the chance of success through organized gathering. I have to say that there is no reason such simple content should require that. Events such as these should be able to succeed with a small group of 5 or less as long as they all don’t do stupid stuff.

The rest of my post:

The Origins of Madness: I’m pretty sure this started with the marionette fight, followed by an instance a moment piece leading players to scarlet’s secret lair, followed by the kill probe defenders and destroy probes. The marionette fight design was similar to the final fights in the meta events of all the zones added after dry top. Because of that it should be simple enough to have it exist as a public instance fight that occurs on a timer like the final fights of the map metas. Providing the right incentives to do the content should make it as desirable as the others so there are plenty of players to do the content. If the original content was too demanding on player numbers then it can be scaled back to require less and still retain the spirit of it (or epic nature if you will). I can’t see it done as an instance that can be started at any time. Since it had 5 lanes even if you scaled it back to only 5 players a lane you would need to organize 25 players to do the instance so it would work better as a timed interval fight like the metas in that way you can have 50 or more players participate in a less player numbers demanding scale of the fight. The probe event and probe destroy could be done as cinematics and randomly picked location each time the story step instance is entered to provide both the scope and span of the content and experience of doing the events It can be scaled for 1 to 5 players. I have the feeling there is significant storytelling I’m forgetting about. Which if not in instances would probably have to be instanced for the story journal.

The Edge of the Mists: I’m pretty sure this whole chapter was all storytelling inside and outside of instances. All the stuff that happened on the persistent world just needs to be instance. The instances can be for 1 to 5 players and retain the original design to them. This chapter would be one of the easiest to transfer to the story journal.

Escape from Lion’s Arch: You entered LA my means of one of three portals which had a pre-event to the event in LA. Those pre-events would be easy enough to be 5 man instances containing all the stuff including storytelling and NPCs etc as they were for the original. The attack event on LA would easily be an instanced version of LA with a map meta. As a map meta the incentive to do it has to be such that it will keep enough players wanting to do it to make it being a meta successful. It being a map meta it would retain the original design. Taking into consideration that not the entire game population will be heading there to do it at any given time. So some adjustment may be needed to properly scale things so that it can be done successfully and still be epic and reward players excellently.

Battle for Lion’s Arch: This is even better suited as a map meta than escape is. It is more structured and suited for organizing players. The end of the meta would be prime hologram boss fight. Again taking into consideration that not the entire game population will be heading there to do it at any given time. So some adjustment may be needed to properly scale things so that it can be done successfully and still be epic and reward players excellently.

Honestly season 1 should have never been temporary. All making season 1 temporary accomplished was alienating players who couldn’t play during the time each part was available and denying future players the enjoyment of the hard work that went into making the content. And there is no significant hurdle to be overcome to make it permanent content. The only parts in need of modification are the few points that were map zergs and persistent map placed. See third paragraph for those.

The world even with that was never really a living world. Even as the game stands today most of it is still stuck as if the personal story wasn’t the past. We have zones such as Kessex Hills where significant circumstances have taken place. Yet the lionguard and centaurs still squabble despite the disputed land having been ravaged by the Toxic Alliance. Not to mention what are they still around for. They were annihilated. Those toxic offshoots don’t have the source to be offshoots from any more. The centaurs and lionguard should have made a truce and the zone being cleaned up by them both and the locals. And perhaps even have gone through that change already and now have new heart objectives and new dynamic events to reflect this hypothetical new truce between the centaurs and lionguard. This is just one example of this sort of clash of timelines. There are several other zones stuck in limbo where event and hearts should have changed to reflect the present.

My thoughts on transitioning each chapter into the story journal for permanent game content:

The lost shores (karka attacks and karka boss at end). This is one of the easiest scaling down. The first part defend lion’s arch was linear in that the event took place at one spot in lion’s arch. This would be instanced and scaled for 5 and/or 10 players or even multiples of 5 for 15, 20 etc if people or guilds want to go big on player numbers. Even at 5 or 10 the epic nature of the fight can be retained with proper numbers of mobs and type (reg, vet, elite, champ). Part two would be done the same as it was a single event that took place in one spot in lion’s arch. The investigation part that took place following this could be as small as one player instances (scaled up if one wishes to do it with more) as it was errand tasks and one enemy fights. Part 3 the ancient karka should be done as a world boss style fight. Due to the continued popularity of world boss fights this is the best way to retain the epic nature of this part considering it was in essence a world boss fight in design. It had a pre-events and the boss (ancient karka).

Flame and Frost: multiple instances for 1 to 5 players. And other than instancing the content would need no modification to the content as it is simply NPC dialog, object interacting, some small events fighting a few enemies, and some content originally designed as instances (would only be a matter of turning a switch to on so they can be accessed in the manner related to the story originally). For parts of this the instance would be the entire zone the NPCs or objects were contained in depending on the scope of the relationship of the NPCs and objects related to them. Certain environment scenery can be captured in cinematics to show us them if they were little things you would miss if you weren’t exploring to see them. Part of the final segment of this is in the fractals. But it is abridged to suit being a fractal.

The Secret of Southsun: This should be as simple as an instanced map of southsun as it was for this chapter. It was helping out a couple NPCs by doing events that were scaled for 1 or more people typically was only handful at them. Also scavenger hunts finding spots or items on the map. And a series of NPC dialogs telling a story. As with the previous this content shouldn’t need any modification aside from making it an instance.

Last Stand at Southsun: Unless I’m overlooking something this was two things. First krazed karka queen. Which I believe is what southsun is currently as the world boss and what not. There was also canach’s lair a solo story mode dungeon and 5 man explorable mode dugeon and simply a matter or turning it on. Any storytelling that lead up to either or both of these can be done within an instance.

Dragon Bash: Oddly this holiday event contained a whole chapter of story telling of season 1. Without digging for videos of every moment of this update I can’t provide much detail here. However meaningless busy work could be removed to isolate the actual story content or simplified if it was an aspect of the story to retain the spirit of the original run of it. For example the consume 250 Zhaitaffy probably is not integral to the story nor setting off 100 fireworks. However certain NPCs present in lion’s arch for this were integral to the story. Those elements would have to be instanced. And throughout the event were originally instances definitely continuing the story. These instances should be as simple as turning them on.

Sky Pirates of Tyria: aetherblade retreat dugeon to be turned on. An abridged version of it is part of fractals. Marriner Plaque scavenger hunt would have to be instanced. There was also NPC dialog story telling in lion’s arch that would have to be instanced. There were the aetherblade spawns from hologram projectors in some maps and the caches in jumping puzzles. The hologram projectors could be redesigned into a story telling instance where the player fights some aetherblades in the spirit of the small events that happened on the persistent maps. A similar thing could be done to capture the spirit of tracking down the caches into a story telling instance where the player tracks down one or more caches. I can’t help but think I’m forgetting something integral to this chapter of the story that was only seen at the that time.

Bazaar of the Four Winds: This may be as simple as activating the zone to be a part of the story journal as all the other chapters would be made to be a part of as they are instanced to contain the storytelling of each of them. As I recall the lore created for this was that it was an annual event. If I recall correctly the zone was visited again once after this. A chapter of storytelling was intertwined with festival activities as busy work. I know for sure there was storytelling involving NPCs in lion’s arch. This would simply need to be instanced. And storytelling involving a couple series of NPCs in the labyrinth cliff zone this took place in. Finding all the sky crystals thing in the zone could be left intact. There was a find kites thing that happened all over the world I don’t think was relevant to the story. There was a diving spot in the zone that can be kept intact. Anything else related to this zone probably was part of future visit(s) to it.

Cutthroat Politics: This chapter had candidate trials in the labyrinth cliff zone. They were solo or up to 5 man instances using the personal story method of entry system. There was an introductory instance in this chapter. All storytelling for this chapter as far as I am aware took place within this zone. So it should be as simple as tweaking it to be the storytelling since the voting was already done. This could be handled in a single instance with a split choice instance to experience the two candidate trial instances. I think any followup story to the candidate trials took place in the next chapter. But if there is any timeline within this chapter that occurs after the canditate trials it would be another storytelling instance of the zone.

Queen’s Jubilee: There were baloon transports and a small event that happened at them. This could be a single instance to tell the story have the player kill the aetherblade in the even and board the baloon with a cinematic showing the arrival in divinity’s reach. There was a lighting of torches thing that could be instanced to tell that story element and award the torch item we got from it. This was followed by an opening ceremony instance. It would simply need to be turned on so it is available to the story journal. The queen’s gauntlet would obtain permanent status as accessed by the zone the crown pavilion. It would be instanced accordingly for this chapter. The zone was divided into six themed slices. Each slice had group event. As it was designed a group of 5 could do the event of a single slice. Instancing this for the story journal would be a matter of making it so that it is 5 man instance where the group does the slices events in series.

Clockwork Chaos: This is where things get more complex in making it available by the story journal. It starts off easy enough by turning on the closing ceremony instance so it can be accessed for the story journal. After is Emissary Vorpp some dialog and an event outside of ascalon settlement. This can be handled as instances the ascalon settlement thing as a 5 man instance. After this was scalet’s playhouse instance. Which simply would just need to be turned on for access from the story journal. After that were scarlet’s zone invasions. This was chaotic multi zerg map wide events. There was a basic structure in that it was three waves that had to be defeated (events success) and reinfocements that showed up and had to be defeated (event success) after each of the first two waves. After the third wave the map fought scarlet. In order for this to work as part of the story journal it has to be instanced. To retain the invasion scope and scale this could be an instanced world boss with the invasion target being a precise random spot in the zone random zone chosen from the zones and locations the events took place at the lead in time for it’s scheduled time to occur. Players would enter a public instance for this method. Or it could be designed as a new large party instance of say 15 or 20 players and the invasion target being a price random spot in the zone in a random zone chosen from the zones and locations the invasions took place at each time the instance is created. The original design should already have the scaling needed to make this content available in either of these methods.

Twilight Assault: The Aetherpath dungeon is still permanent content. I’m not sure if there was any storytelling outside of the dungeon. If there was then I assume it has to be instanced and also that and the dungeon path added to the journal for timeline of the journal.

Tower of Nightmares: A lead in cinematic would have to be created for this. As unless you were a info scrounger for every morsel about GW2 outside of the game or in the habit of checking every nook of the game for potential changes you missed lead in changes to this chapter. This lead in would have to be a cinematic that shows players the changes to the zone made in the blood and madness halloween update. Players started this with a story instance (the nightmare unveiled) when attempting to visit the zone. This should be a simple turn it on so it can be accessed by the story journal. An event took place at the base camp. This event would be a followup instance to the nightmare unveiled. Within it would be all the NPCs and their dialog and story content that was at the camp on the persistent map. Any story related to the krait obelisk shards should be easy to include where appropriate. I can honestly say I’m not sure how best to handle the toxic offshoot events. They are still currently in the persistent world for some strange reason. The NPC dialog and storytelling that are related to them would have to be in an instance. Perhaps a combination of more than one cinematic and a scalable instance for multiples of 5 man to do an offshoot event is the best way to handle this aspect of the story from this chapter. The zone had events to stop the toxic alliance from doing this and that. Those all can be formulated into a one instance where up to 5 players do the events in series. Or a series of instances one for each event.

The Nightmares Within: As far as I recall this chapter was all contained within the tower of nightmares. Which was a public instance. Because it had the feel of a dungeon design but scaled for the number of players this should be easily changed to an instance for a specific number of players. Since the final instance of this content was 5 man it makes sense to me to have the tower be 5 man. You would have to complete the events same as it was in the chapter release to progress through the tower. There were nightmare chamber instances (also 5 man I believe) on each level of the tower and in one of several random locations for each level. These could still be random location and have to be completed as part completing the instance. Retaining the golem would allow the player to complete level 1 to unlock level 2 to do later if desired and 2 for 3. Arriving finally at the top for the dive and stuff that was up there including the nightmare incarnate. The only change to this chapter would be instancing any story content that was on the persistent map leading you into the tower and the tower being a limited player number private instance instead of a large player number public instance.

Fractured: This was a story mode along with the release of the thaumanova reactor fractal. I don’t know if playing today if someone never did the story mode if they can start it for other players or not. If not it can be turned on for access for the story journal. If it is still active one less thing to be done to have access to it in the story journal. If there was any storytelling that took place outside of this story mode it would probably have to be instanced.

Due to character limit this post continues in a second reply.

I was trying to provide feedback for this class. The problem at that level is you don’t have access to an underwater healing skill while all other classes at that level do. And as I said the content was easy so the skill was not needed however if one were to want to push that content harder (take on more to finish it faster) they could not do so because they did not have the option of an under water healing skill. It wasn’t a matter of making the right choices. You don’t get the ability to spend any hero points until level 11 yet the underwater content is available prior to level 11. And all other classes the healing skill they start with at level 1 works underwater. Revenant however this is not the case. And why I proposed in my feedback that perhaps this was an oversight. The oversight I figure is either in the heal you start with or the fact that you can’t gain access to an underwater heal until after underwater content is encountered.

I’ve reached level 10 and Eona (level 8 heart) in Caledon Forest has underwater related tasks. The heart is easy as can be however I observed that the classes starting stance and heal skill are not allowed underwater. This is the only class that I’m aware of that are denied any skill availability in slots they have unlocked at this level. This seems rather like an oversight or something.

I understand how the skill functions I wanted to bring attention to the fact that the range indicator incorrectly indicates the after effect range rather than the skills hit range.

I just started playing this class and Grasping Shadow tooltip says: attack range 160 shadowstep range 600. The red bar range indicator on the bottom of the icon disappears at 600 range however the skill does nothing at that range. I assume this is because the attack range is the range that the red bar should be indicating and not the shadowstep range. When kiting it isn’t very useful of an indicator since if I was at say 161 range the skill would fail to do anything but it could look like I am within range.

I’m looking for a steady raid group. If you will have me I would like to join ya’ll for raiding.

I’m looking for a group to raid with outside of my primary guild if you are interested in having me let me know. Thanks.

Two questions, what times do you raid? I need a raid group that fits my schedule late evenings to late night (eastern time NA). And are you doing all raid wings and bosses and what is the success rate on them? My primary guild raids but it is not meeting my expectations for raiding as I’m used to more hardcore raiding where there are few if any wipes.

Two questions, what times do you raid? I need a raid group that fits my schedule late evenings to late night (eastern time NA). And are you doing all raid wings and bosses and what is the success rate on them? My primary guild raids but it is not meeting my expectations for raiding as I’m used to more hardcore raiding where there are few if any wipes.

Since I didn’t realize there was a sub forum for looking for. I swear I looked at all the sections and didn’t see this section and so my post was moved here but due to the age of the post relative to the rest of the posts I’m way down the page list and not likely to be seen so I’m posting this reply to get it seen. Thanks to all who read and reply.

Every time our guild organizes for a guild activity we have to deal with the game creating new instances of the guild hall and forcing everyone to the new copy every time there are more than a few more people attempting to enter the guild hall that already has only a handful of people in it. Can we please get this fixed? There is no reason the guild hall initial instance should not hold all players the guild could have in the hall at the same time. This was not a problem in GW1 and should not be a problem here. Thanks.

I am looking for a guild/group to raid with regularly. I am staying with my primary guild as we do a lot of other stuff together including raiding but the guild is more casual and I’m used to a bit more when it comes to raids. My availability is evenings typically 7pm eastern up to as late as 2am eastern. Except 11:30 pm eastern thursdays and fridays as that is time slots dedicated to primary guild activities. Anyone willing to have me in your group please let me know. Thanks.

I redownloaded both 32 and 64 bit clients. Still not downloading content while I play on either client.

After reading you ask if I have tried -repair. I went ahead and tried that even though the install of the game is so fresh. It did it’s thing. But appears to have been no damaged files. At least if there was they had nothing to do with this issue as the game still isn’t downloading files while playing. I again confirmed that it is set to max upon entering in game with a character. And proceeded to play for a half hour. I then exited and opened the game and at log in the number of files hadn’t changed from the time I clicked play. Also while playing the game, resource monitor continues to indicate the game only using about 8kbits per second while playing.

As far as I understand -image just forces the game to download everything before it starts up. Which defeats our purpose here of getting the content streaming feature to download it. Attached is an image of the maploadinfo displayed upon loading in from character select.

Support’s reply: (This reply practically infuriated me as my frustration was already high.)

I appreciate that you have been patient with our investigation

It didn’t sound like you tried renaming your target line. Right click on your Guild Wars 2 short cut and click on “Properties”. On the “Shortcut” tab your target line should look something like this: “C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2\Gw2.exe”

I’d like you to add -StreamingClient at the end of the target line, here is an example: “C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2\Gw2.exe” -StreamingClient

Please note that there is a space between the original target line and “-StreamingClient”, here is an incorrect example: “C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2\Gw2.exe-StreamingClient”

My reply:

The patch notes I linked several replies ago indicates to the contrary. It says that command line thing is no longer needed. However for the sake of this process I tested it using the command line in the short cut. I played for half hour after launching using it. Then exited and started it again to see where the files were at. No change, same amount left from when I started.

Support’s reply:

So I know what the notes for this have stated. So this is all dependent on your internet connection stability. You’re playing tge game while the patch install? I’m assuming this is the case. If so I would recommend trying to let the patch install without being in the game. I know that Guild Wars 2 has the option to play while it installs, which is awesome, but when playing your bandwidth is definitely going to prioritize what’s being used first. Knowing you are able to play this game at Max settings based on your computer specs and depending on what you are doing the bandwidth is going to go more for the game than for the back ground download.

Yes I know the client does allow players to play while it installs, but you are definitely limited because it hasn’t fully updated. If you are still in the process of updating, please try leaving the client to update. Now if you are having issues with the client updating we can try and help troubleshoot that particular situation.

My reply: (At this point I’m so frustrated my reply probably shows it)

My connection is not the issue. I have a 20Mbits connection. It performs consistently at that. Thats over 2 megabytes per second. The game is only using 8Kbits.That’s less than 1/1000 of 1% of my bandwidth. I could be streaming Netflix HD in two rooms of my house and still have over half my bandwidth available for the game to use. Yet it would still be only using less than 1%. And again I have spoke with dozens of people and none of them can tell me that streaming works. Have you done a clean install of the game and tested this on a PC there to confirm that it is functioning correctly? Because once the client has reached the “playable” mark in the downloading it is supposed to continue to download every second you are playing. Thank you, I look forward to your reply.

END OF EMAILS —-———-

I have made two attempts now to get help to either resolve why the streaming feature is not downloading the game content and get it downloading the game content or get acknowledgement that it is a bug and is being fixed. The first attempt was a thread in the bug section. I’m being told by friends and guild mates that I should start a thread in the tech support forum section as I’m more likely to get the problem resolved here. To make the process as smooth as possible I am including all email correspondence which has taken place over the weekend. I am beyond frustrated with email support. Their replies will make it clear as to why. Also the forum is limiting the post to 15,000 characters so this has to be split into multiples. Please help me resolve this issue or confirm that it is a bug in need of fixing and that it is being fixed. Thank you.

BEGINNING OF EMAILS —-———-

Me:

For reference: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Content-streaming-bug/first#post5941037 as this was my original contact on the issue. Due to discontinued dialog in the thread and the problem not resolved or any indication of ok got it we need to fix a bug or something. I am opening this support request so that the problem can either be resolved by troubleshooting or a conclusion be reached that this is a bug that ya’ll need to fix. Given that this is a week since I last reply from a staff member and it is still not working I assume that this has not gone beyond the individual who attempted to help troubleshoot the issue. Thanks. Oh and please do respond one way or another so I know what is going on in the case this is a bug and ya’ll have to patch the game for it to work. That way I can report to my guild that it is being worked on as we had discussed this as well while I was waiting for replies on troubleshooting.

Support’s reply:

I do see that you did do the game advisor before. But if you don’t mind going through it again, so I could have a updated one. Thank you.

“We’d like to gather some more information about the problems you’re experiencing by having you run a program called Game Advisor on your computer. This application provides us with helpful information about your system and Internet connection.

If you’re using a router, hub, or switch, please disconnect it and connect directly to your modem before running this utility. You may have to reboot your modem and/or computer to reestablish your Internet connection. If this isn’t possible due to your network setup, please run Game Advisor with the router connected as the information will still be useful.

To run Game Advisor, please perform the following steps:

Download Game Advisor here: http://us.ncsoft.com/gameadvisor
When prompted, save the file to your Windows “Desktop” so you can access it easily. Please save the file before running it (running it from the website can cause file issues).
Double-click on the Game Advisor file and then click on the icon for the game you are having trouble with.
Click “Test Computer and Connection” and wait a few minutes while the test completes.
Once the test completes, a “Test Result” window will come up showing the location of the test result file. Please attach this file to a reply to this e-mail.
Once we receive the test results, we’ll have a better idea of how to resolve your issue."

My reply:

Thank you for your reply. Attached is the requested file generated by game advisor. I look forward to hearing back from you. Thank you again.

Support’s reply:

Thanks for getting back to us.

Guild Wars 2 requires TCP ports 80, 443, and 6112 to be fully unrestricted and accessible, both inbound and outbound. If you are connecting to Guild Wars 2 on a campus, military, or business network, please check with your network’s administrator to verify that these ports are fully opened and unrestricted. If you are on a home network, make sure that your network’s hardware is configured properly.

To find out how to configure your router, review your owner’s manual or visit the manufacturer’s website. Here are links for several common manufacturers:

D-Link®: http://support.dlink.com/
Linksys®: http://www.linksysbycisco.com/US/en/support
NETGEAR®: http://kb.netgear.com/app/home
Belkin®: http://www.belkin.com/support/
For further information about opening ports or port forwarding, you can visit www.portforward.com. Note: This site is not affiliated with or supported by NCSOFT or ArenaNet.

My reply:

I now have those ports forwarded. What do I do next? Thank you.

Support’s reply:

Thanks for getting back to us.

I noticed some discrepancies in the report that could be contributing to this issue. To resolve this issue please do the following:

Click the “Start” button to bring up the Start Menu.
Type in CMD into the “Search programs and files” field but do not hit enter. Doing this will change your start menu to show the program “cmd.exe.”
Right-click on “cmd.exe” and select “Run as Administrator.”
Once complete, type “netsh winsock reset” without the quotes. When the command is completed successfully, a confirmation appears, followed by a new command prompt line.
Try connecting to the game again.
Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any additional issues, questions, or concerns.

My reply:

I followed those steps and ran the command. It instructed me to reboot so I rebooted. I then proceeded to start guild wars 2 once I was in windows. The client had 74,4xx files left to download. I logged in and chose my necro character to play. I also confirmed that stream setting was set to max. And proceeded to play for 20 minutes. I then exited the game. And start guild wars 2 again. And the files left to download was still at 74,4xx. In that amount of time thousands if not tens of thousands of files should have downloaded. Thank you for your continued assistance.

Support’s reply: (This is where my frustration begins.)

I believe there may be some confusion in our interaction and I apologize for this. The patcher will not download new content while playing Guild Wars 2. In order to complete your download, you will need to wait until the patcher finishes outside of game.

My reply:

According to the description of the in game setting for streaming max streams files as fast as possible. Comparatively the idle setting say it will only download when you are idle. For reference arenanets own new post about this before they changed from the command line switch to an in game setting is here: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/coming-soon-beta-version-of-streaming-client/
and the June 9th patch notes detailing the switch from the command line method to in game setting is here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-June-9-2015 This patch note puts it as simple as it can be: “Streaming Client will allow players to play the game faster by reducing the up-front download size when first downloading the game or when a patch is released.” The client has a “playable” marker on the download process. At that point you are allowed to click play and enter the game. From there it is supposed to follow the option players chose in the in game setting indicated in my first sentence. This however is not functioning correctly. And was the reason for the thread (I linked to in the opening) that no longer was getting official replies to mid troubleshooting and for me having started the email support request. Thank you for your continued assistance.

Support’s reply:

Thanks for getting back to us.

Sometimes connection issues are caused by the way your network is configured. As a temporary troubleshooting step to rule out potential router problems, we would like you to try bypassing your router and connecting directly to your modem instead.

To do this, please perform the following:

Locate and remove the Ethernet cable that is plugged into the back of your router from the modem. This cable may be connected to a port marked as a “WAN” port.
Replace the Ethernet cable currently plugged into your system with the cable you removed from the router.
Confirm that your Internet connection is working properly by visiting a few websites. If you can’t browse to a website, please reboot your modem by unplugging the power cable to it and plugging it back in.
Reboot your computer, and try the game again.
This is not intended as a permanent solution, but will help us pinpoint the cause of the problem you are experiencing.

If this resolves the connectivity issue, the router may need to be configured properly. Assistance with configuring the router can be found at the router manufacturer’s support website.

If the issue persists while directly connected to the modem please let us know.

My reply:

I’m directly connected to the internet modem. I opened guild wars 2 and repeated the playing on my necro and also verifying that the in game setting is set to max. It is still not streaming downloading files as it is supposed to be. Thank you for your continued assistance I look forward to your reply with what to do next.

Support’s reply:

Thanks for getting back to me.

I’ve reviewed your Game Advisor report and discovered some packet loss (data being dropped between your computer and our servers). I’d like you to download and use a free program called “WinMTR” to get more detailed information about the problem.

How to get WinMTR:
1. Download WinMTR here. A .zip file will download automatically a few seconds after the page loads.
2. Open the .zip file.
3. Select “Extract all files” and make sure “Show extracted files when complete” is selected.
4. Click “Extract.” A new window should open.
5. Double-click the folder “winmtr_bin_0.8” in the new window.
6. Double-click “WinMTR.exe” to run the program.

Once WinMTR is running:
1. Log in to Guild Wars 2
2. In the chat window type “/ip” without the quotes and press enter. This will return an IP address followed by a colon and a number (for example, “192.158.1.1:0”).
3. Copy the IP address but omit the colon and everything after.
4. Paste or type the IP address into the “Host” field in WinMTR.
5. Click Start.
6. Let WinMTR run while you play Guild Wars 2 for about 30 minutes.
7. After about 30 minutes have passed, click the “Export HTML” button in WinMTR and save the file to your desktop.
8. Attach the “.htm” file to a reply to this e-mail (note: make sure you’re attaching the actual file and not copying the file location from your browser).

Once I have the file I will review the results and let you know what I find.

My reply:

I hope the tool worked correctly. I was playing and almost 25 minutes later the game hung up everything froze up like I was looking at a screenshot. My PC was not froze up. I could manage to interact enough with winMTR to save the log file as directed. I hope that it actually logged for the whole almost 25 minutes. As I suspect it is winMTR that caused the game to do that. Since the game has never, in the over 3 years I have played, done that. I have attached the file as requested. Thank you again for continuing to help.

Support’s reply: (I got really frustrated at this because I feel like they didn’t even bother to read what I was saying, as I had stated multiple times that I have confirmed the setting is set to max.)

Can you make sure you have your Content Streaming set to Max? You can find this in your in-game options menu towards the bottom of General Options.

My reply:

I confirmed again just for this reply that it is set to max. And also have confirmed it is set to max every time I have started the game during this process. Thank you again for you continued help.

Support’s reply:

Thank you for contacting us about this issue

To further investigate this issue I will need you to provide a screenshot of your Guild Wars 2 client and any other screenshots you believe is relevant to this issue. Hopefully after looking at your screenshots we can narrow down the troubleshooting process.

My reply: (I try to provide more info regarding the issue in hopes that it helps.)

Ok the login-downloading.jpg is the client before logging in showing that it is downloading at that part. Please note that the number of files remaining now is only lower due to the brief handful of seconds it has been at the login these some dozen times now the game has been opened during this troubleshooting process. I noted the file count each time I pressed play so that the moment this part appears on the next opening I can confirm that while I was in game playing nothing was downloaded. The option-confirm-max.jpg is the option screen in game showing that it is indeed set to max. I know of no other relevant stuff to take a screen shot of because there is nothing in game visual that provides any feedback or progress to let us know that anything is happening. The only info I have to go on is that files remaining shown during login. Isn’t there some sort of build in tool that can run extreme verbos logging of everything that is going on in the client so you guys can see exactly what is happening between the client and server to pinpoint why it is failing to downloading during game play? Have ya’ll installed the client from scratch on a PC and began playing when it reaches the “playable” mark, then confirmed in game was set to max and been able to reproduce the problem? Or find that it is downloading while playing the game in your test? I ask because I want to know if ya’ll have tried to reproduce/confirm and also because I know I’m not the only one that is having this problem and I have not been able to find anyone who can confirm that this feature actually works. None of my friends are willing to delete the game and start from scratch to test it. Anyone else friends or otherwise fall into two categories.One response is I don’t start playing the game until it has completely downloaded and that is how they always have and always will do it (not sure why they would want to wait when they don’t have to). The other response is the streaming has never and just put up with it not working right.

Since I haven’t heard back further I would like to ask if there is a debug tool I should be using, an email address maybe I should continue this with. Or if this has gone to ya’ll confirmed there is indeed a problem and have developers working on fixing it? Thanks.

Sorry that is what I meant I just missed the taking the corners half roundabout kind of path part. The route going out the north portal to your destination for this is shorter than going the way the content guild directs you. In fact the virtual distance traveled is almost twice as far to take the route the content guide directs.

It is showing the right setting. I have tried your method two different ways and it is not downloading anything while set to max. I first logged into the game. On the character select screen I went into options set it to on demand. Entered with my necro character. Played in the zone I entered for 5 minutes harvesting nodes, killing some enemies, getting waypoints and such I didn’t have. I then went into settings changed it to max. And proceeded to do the same for another 5 minutes. Then went about doing some personal story steps for about a half hour or so. I then exited the game and opened it again to see the status of how many files were left and it was the same amount as before I logged in to do the steps I just listed.

I then tried it another way. Opened the game. on the character select screen chose on demand. Entered with my necro character. Did the same activities above but in a different zone (the one I left off in after doing that personal story thing) for 5 minutes. Exited the game this time. Opened it again and logged in. On character select chose max for the setting. Entered with my necro character. Did the same activities in the zone for 5 minutes. And then proceeded to do some more personal story until the time I am writing this post. I exited the game to open it again to check the status of the number of files left, and again at the same amount it was at the time of login.

Thank you for the reply. Is there a way to tell if after having done this that it is now properly set other than playing for an hour or two more and then exiting and starting the game again to see if file progress has been made?

Setting is set to max, which is supposed to download files every second I’m playing. Yet it is not downloading at all unless I go to a zone I have yet to visit since installing the game. And it tells me you can’t go there yet we need to download the zone. I installed the game two days ago and it still has over 168,000 files to download. That would be after the 5 or 6 zones I had to wait for the game to download to go into them. My connection is so fast that I should have had the whole game downloaded within a few hours at most. I have been in game playing in total over 3 days 10 or more hours.

Once in the Black Citadel and you have talked to the NPC and are now directed to talk to Ignavus Ridgerunner in Fireheart Rise; the content guide directs you to the portal to Lion’s Arch. However it makes no sense to go there when you can go north out of the Black Citadel through Diessa Plateau into the south of Fireheart Rise. Since the content guide is designed to direct players who haven’t already been to the location needed for the item being directed to; taking the portal to Lion’s Arch to get to Fireheart Rise would be a longer trip than going north out of the Black Citadel.

Once you have done the stuff at least once using LFG tool is fine but if you want to see each portion of the story content you need to already be in the map before it begins. But even still I have used LFG tool gotten a good one and then abandoned after significant progress in the followup meta. But really what makes no sense to me is why when 50-75% progress has been made people just abandon. That is what is frustrating. You lose out big time on the rewards when that happens. If you get the warning early on like 5% progress or so then at least you can get full rewards from switching.

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but this is one skimpy slot that holds just one item? If so are people nuts, paying $9 to save yourself a few seconds each time you decide to play on a different character and want to transfer items to that character. I wouldn’t even spend $1 for just one of that. You do realize for 600 gems you can get a whole bank tab? And even at that price I feel it is overpaying for something that should be gained as a in game reward. I’m not normally one to cry price gouging but this item qualifies as a price gouge if I ever seen one.

Sarevok.2638:

Make all soul bound account bound?

May as well give all Digital Deluxe Perma bank contracts….

This would be an exception that I was referring to when I could not thing of offhand items that it would be an issue with. In this case the exploit for unlimited free gem store item would be an exception and kept soul bound. I think even the OP would agree on this point.

The LFG tool needs a lot of work. It is still in the same more or less state it was when it was introduces as a beta feature. So technically it is still beta because they have failed to really do anything much with it. Open world should have sub categories for every zone I would think. So instead of living story being the drop down heading it should be open world with sun headings per zone. Personal story should be story journal with sub headings for personal story and what not sub portions of story journal. These could be in lumps as the headings show for each block segment of story so as to not have a really long list for each individual step.

I’m just now getting into doing the new zones from HoT and I discovered something I’m not sure if anyone else has brought this up. I keep getting your map will close and volunteer to move. But this happens like in nearing the middle uo to 75% through the meta. It becomes obvious at that point that people for whatever reason have left the zone and caused the map to hit the prep to close point. But when you volunteer and leave you lose all of your participation level. And if you stay you also aren’t going to get much of anything. If I have to leave the map this way I should retain my participation level since this effects my reward. I should not be penalized because people abandoned the map so late into the meta. I didn’t leave the zone I simply volunteered to move onto a more populated one so the game could close the old one sooner. Thanks.

This is something that I keep forgetting to post a suggestion for. I seem to recall this was a basic feature in from the beginning in GW1 but absent in GW2. It is however there for the friends list. But it is silly to duplicate my guild in my friends list to get so and so logged on of off messages. Can we please get these messages for our guild(s). This can be a setting somewhere so those that don’t want the messages can turn them off. Thanks.

But then we can’t see the names that we do want to see. And why did this get moved to the PvP section when this is clearly a topic in regards to PvE. Note the objection is this badge being seen in “PvE”. This has nothing to do with PvP sub forum. I’m not the one who started the thread but I think this has been moved inappropriately. Thanks.

Danikat.8537:

I actually find the down-levelling icon useful, because if I’m on a high level character in a low level map and I find myself doing events alongside someone who doesn’t have that icon I know to scale back my damage. Even with downscaling a level 80 can kill things a hell of a lot faster than a level 1-10 and I know from experience how frustrating it is if you can’t get a chance to do enough damage for events.

Yes knowing if others are not down scaled is helpful but know what level those that have been downscale from is not really needed.

Danikat.8537:

All the other stuff…I wish it worked like titles where you can choose 1 icon to appear beside your name, maybe specific to each game mode (so someone could have map completion in PvE, WvW rank in WvW, PvP rank in PvP).

If we are given a choice to see what is shown to us then that would be an acceptable alternative to not at all. But there is a lot of this stuff that simply does not need to be seen by anyone outside of the person who was it.

If you want all central tyria mastery the problem is you will end up having to do something you don’t want to do to get them. I think this is the point that was trying to be made here. I have all but the fractal mastery completed. The fact that I had done a ton of the achievements prior to the system being in place meant I didn’t need to do any more until I got all but fractal mastery. Unfortunately there were only two available in fractal achievements I didn’t already have. And are the hardest two to get. In addition all the ones that were left in the rest of the achievements are the hardest to get of those. In fact mostly near impossible to get ones. I just did the easiest of those ones. It took me 10 hours of repeated failing to finally manage to get it and even the attempt that finally got it we were literally a split second from failure that time. That is just nuts to expect players to have to deal with that. What makes no sense is why there aren’t mastery points that are simple commune spots like there are in heart of thorns zones. to make up more extra points available. These extra points aren’t going to be useless as I’m sure they will have more mastery stuff for us to get eventually. After all enough players always want something to work towards getting that gives them reason to come up with something for them to work towards. For me the story is enough but reality is enough want more than that which is why we end up with these sorts of things. But what doesn’t have to be is forcing people into hard to get extras within the regular content to get that other progression thing we want.

Gaaroth.2567:

Well, in matches is hided so you can’t focus, for example, on low ranks since you can spot them.

In PvP lobby yes, it has a point.

In PvE, well, people show their level/mastery level but cannot show their “pvp level”? I think it’s a bit unfair.

If anything, i’d suggest to make it consistent (strange uh?).
So under name there’s the title, right of the name there’s the guild, left of the name there should be the overall character/account status: level or mastery level, WvW level, PvP level with 3 badges of the same size or sorta.
So if you take a look at someone, you’ll see his overall status. Then hide it when is not needed (like in pvp matches).

There really is no reason for a lot of other player facing info. Why do you want people in PvE to see your PvP progress? That’s like going to the Amish and bragging about how many movies you’ve seen. That just annoys them. And since you brought up mastery and level badges. They have no point either really. The game scales you down so seeing that someone is above the level area is meaningless. I can be level 80 and not be appropriately skilled with that character so the number does not designate I’m better at things than anyone else. And how many mastery points I have obtained doesn’t mean I am better at anything any more than anyone else as well. I have ran into people that have them all and they are the worst player ever. Same goes for achievement points. So what is the point of anyone being able to see any of it anywhere in the game. So far all I have seen it used for is to unfairly discriminate against people that haven’t farmed the number.

reapex.8546:

So my argument was that most items that are soul bound should simple be made account bound. Are you arguing the very existence of the account bound / soul bound system? I understand the point of not wanting to sell to other players. But my questions, do we really need two systems to handle bounding?

Sorry for any misunderstanding in my post. I am in agreement that there is no reason to have soul bound and that everything should be account bound. With one possible exception an effective gold sink that drives players to want that high sink item on every character. That would be the only justification for a soul bound item. However there are no such item(s) in GW2 that I’m aware that fit that classification and therefor all items that are soul bound should be account bound as they both accomplish the same end result as far as GW2 is concerned. Hopefully that better states what I tried to say last post.

DeadlySynz.3471:

My favorite was the 60,000+ bids on silver ore, that one perplexes me.. unless I’m missing something here. Buying for 15 copper and selling for 21??

The easiest way to solve this is just whatever you buy off the TP make it account bound,

Done, no more exploiting or playing the TP to drive up prices. For those who want to buy stuff to salvage for MF, this should work out for you, it keeps the prices down. As for the TP flippers, too bad so sad.

Flipping is neither exploiting or a method to drive up prices. No one person has that capacity. Trust me I have tried and the result was I only hurt myself in the form of lost gold. I bought 10s of thousands of a low value item in hopes of selling it for a much higher value. Only to have within minutes as many items as I just bought enter the market again driving the price right back down to the chunk of stuff I just bought.

On the other hand items that clearly have a buy bid that is way too low. This is concluded by monitoring what people are paying for the stuff in the sell listings. You can put in buy bids at those low prices for people who don’t care to look and see that they could get more just as fast and sell to the highest buy bid. And then turn around and make a profit. This happens in the real world economy too. I’m a store I see an opportunity to buy some item from someone else at a low price. I take that opportunity and do so and turn around and sell the item for a profit to those who pay more for the item. But at the same time there are people who want the item for less. We can see that and sell the item for less to make that person happy. In the end everyone wins because the economy benefits and everyone got what they wanted one way or the other.

Was the person(s) who sold those 60,000 ore to the highest bid forced to do so… No. They could have listed them for higher and waited a very brief time to get more but they decided they wanted the money instantly vs near instantly. The person willingly paying more to buy something instantly isn’t being forced to either. They have the option to put in a buy offer and wait a brief time to get vs instantly. People even have the option to not use the TP at all.

I see no reason not to have the achievements award mastery points but that they also add other ways to get them in addition to that. Kind of like how hero (formerly skill) points are earned. In the heart of thorn zones we have spots on the map we can commune to get mastery points. Could that not also be done for tyria mastery points in the zones designated to grant XP to tyria mastery. These could be NPCs we do something with or simply a commune location like the new zones have. Or they could get, I don’t know, creative and have some sort of side story or something we follow to get them at the end of the side story. We have a story journal that could have so much more to it. We have had this main plot and it really is all there has been for story content. The zones and what not outside of that in the game have sort of lacked in story. And would be perfect for doing side plots to award stuff including mastery points with.

Personally if you are not in a the PvP lobby or in a match there is no reason such a thing should be visible to others. In PvE it is just annoying. And I doubt anyone much cares about PvP status outside of PvP, I certainly don’t I simply find it annoying. So this should just be not seen outside of the two specific area.

The reasoning for binding anything (soul or account) is so that it is not possible to trade or sell it to someone else. In that regard there is no reason to not have everything that is bound to then be account bound. What we need to address: is there anything that is soul bound that should not be account bound because there is a legitimate reason for the one over the other. To which I do NOT see any reason for anything soul bound to not be account bound. We have no soul bound items that are a huge gold sink (aka remove gold from the economy vs transfer of it to someone else in the economy). And that would be the only legitimate reason to want someone to sink that much more gold to get one for all their characters or what not.

Certain things there are reasons for people to do that. Sure I’m not denying there are TP bots that take advantage of legitimate player activities to automate the process. But then there has to be ways for them to be able to block the bots but allow the legitimate player actions. I have in the past seen a demand for a low level item but buy offers are low compared to what they are selling for. In a case like that one could buy 100s of them and flip them back into the market with sell offers and make a profit. Sometimes that is quite risky and you end up losing you coin spent, maybe salvage and sell the mats ends up recovering some of that. But if they don’t have a way to block the bot and let the players legitimately do the same activity then I’m not sure there is a solution that doesn’t also hurt the legitimate player. We already have to face the spam hammer when we want to sell multiple items/stacks. I can’t even get through my inventory of loot i won’t use or salvage without hitting that. And then having to tell everyone hold on for 5 minutes while i wait for the game to allow me to sell the rest of my stuff.

Inculpatus cedo.9234 that is more or less the nut shell. In game details of the track and the progress we have made in the track. With this we see the next thing we will get and how much is needed. It’s not clear how much each thing we do gives us either unless they fixed a bug that I’m not aware was a bug. At least one map I was in I had never been to post introduction of map bonus tracks to original zones and did event after event and wasn’t getting bonuses. Other ones I’d just keep getting the same crap reward over and over when it was the precious thing in the list I was after. I should not have to go outside of the game to see what the list of rewards are for the track. Which we appear to have more info than there was at the time I posted this. They have the system and the basic means to show it to us (see pvp tracks) it is just a small step to expand that out to show the whole track and progress and have reward tracks be it’s own panel with sections of PvE, PvP and if they so desire future WvW tracks too. The tracker element would just show whats next and could provide basic info similar to the achievement tracker as I previously described. The show me at a glance what’s next and the track details that are more important to me and I’m sure a lot of others.

I’m running into an increased amount of items we are expected to hold onto that take up inventory or vault space. “Keys” being one of them including fragments that become “keys”. It wouldn’t have been an issue really if the lockpick first introduced was really a “lockpick” and opened anything that needed a “key” to open. but we have some “key” now for practically every zone. But the problem also extends to “materials” and related that are not stored in related areas. Unidentified fossil insects, extraction devices, reclaimed metal plates, shimmering crystals, unidentified dyes, and probably many more similar items I’m not aware of yet. Tonics need a tonic cupboard that one is a huge thing like minipets and wardrobe level. A pantry for consumables food and utility things. Black lion items like bank access, merchant, repair canisters should not be items but some place in the UI like transmutation charges are and consumed by the click of a button. Anyone feel free to mention specific things I have overlooked to include in my post here. Thanks.

That is unfortunate. I was afraid of that. A limitation of other forum systems as well. Forcing someone to have to maintain a summary topic organized thread to accomplish. A task that should not have to be to do something that should be designed within the forum systems. I guess wasted time trying to view the info you need is what we have to deal with then. Which is rather aggravating. If at least it were just links to each topics replies per page rather than page after page of replies to single thread with a post here or there from another mixed in it would not be so aggravating.

Dawdler.8521:

The entire point of living world season 1 was to make a true living world. A world where timed moved on, instead of being in a perpetual frozen state. It achieved this gallantly. It made the PvE world come alive. You cannot redo it because… well, its in the past. Was it harsh that people missed it if they couldnt attend? Well yes. That’s how time works.

GW2 definetly lost something unique when they stopped doing this.

Problem is the game isn’t living. All we got were personal story content that occurred on the open world so that it could never be seen again without watching a youtube video of it. The world didn’t change except lions arch. Orr still acts like Zaitan hasn’t been defeated. I mean we defeated it aleady so the undead should have all fizzled out with some post defeat clearing and Orr retaken by the the people of Tyria with wild life slowly returning to it. Much can be said of every other open world zone. Perpetual unchanging back and forth of centaurs and humans in Kessex Hills despite the fact that a big tower exploded. And still hasn’t been attempted to be cleaned up. Why because for some reason the centaurs and humans can’t resolve their petty issues in face of the massive threat of a plethora of ancient immortal dragons are waking to obliterate civilization. Oh and the toxic alliance is dead because Scarlet is no more, so why do they continue as if their tower didn’t explode and the thing they were feeding is no more. I mean they would have been wiped out too with a post defeat clean up as well. I could go on and on even with the new zones related to the post scarlet pre heart of thorns zones too.

The dream of a truely living world is noble but the reality is the task of making it truely so is extremely daunting a tedious. They would need a team to analyze every little thing from NPC dialogs to their ambient chatter to the events that occur everywhere. For every change they make. And create new things for all of that. While again a noble dream but in reality would mean the need for way more staff including devs and simply unless everyone plans on spending twice or more than we do for this game in gems etc I don’t see this game ever truely being living. Far too much has to be changed all the time.

On the other hand encapsulating content in instances achieves that more freely because they all you need to do is design the instances and the rest of the game doesn’t need to be touched because that “rest of the game” is the specific moment in time. There is no reason Orr for example couldn’t be two different versions. The pre Zaitan defeat and a post defeat. After all it would be no different than adding a new zone as far as what players do and where they go. Mechanically all that would be needed is a player interaction to choose to visit pre or post defeat. Which could be in the form of the active story in the journal for example; and our personal story would be like the post scarlet story portions we would click to revisit X spot and that would determine the state of relevant zones. Then you have a more feasible living world. While allowing the player to see all of it for all time.

Temporary content only alienates new players. Because they feel like they are buying a game that isn’t giving them everything everyone else paid the same for. This is why TV shows have reruns. Because they otherwise don’t get as many customers (viewers) as they would if they didn’t and expected them to watch anyway despite the fact they missed everything to date. Again these shows are living and every changing despite the fact that you can watch all the old episodes of them. this is no different in a game. And the way it should be. The world can change and still have everything that is “past” still be available to play. That is the strength of encapsulating content. Something they are just beginning to understand they forgot about with the story journal system. And the impact their living changes had on the “past” of the game story.

First since a thread was referenced on the nature of content needs improvement. I would agree to an extent that some things could have been designed better. A raid that was more than just a straight to a boss fight would have been nice. Something more along the lines of dungeon design of story telling. Perhaps that story starts after the boss that guards the “actual” raid? I mean that is the impression I get with the vale guardian. I don’t want to go into details on this I’m sure I’m not the only one who doesn’t want spoilers for parts we haven’t gotten to yet. I do like the shift in story telling to the stronger styles they had in GW1 rather than the static backdrop conversations. This is one good thing. There are others too. But we are, as been pointed out many times in the thread here to discuss why mounts (over anything else) is the thing we should have.

I’m not convinced that mounts will be of any benefit financially or otherwise. The reason I play any kind of RPG is the story. And I’m sure is the primary reason anyone does. But it also has to be mixed well with good game mechanics and functionality. Which we have had to do. There have been bugs and such that initially had to be dealt with. But you can have the best mechanics, functionality and all sort of bling including mounts up the wahzoo and a huge world to explore but without a good story to drive you around that world and to experience the mechanics etc with the rest is just meaningless. The biggest complaint I see about heart of thorns is that they didn’t release enough story with the initial purchase. I would have liked to see as much as the original releases story length with it. But that didn’t stop me from enjoying it and knowing that we are getting more story content releases to me that is content we paid for in the purchase of heart of thorns. Refer to my other comment about that.

If they decide to add mounts to the game having them be exclusively in the gem store or only the best looking ones in there you are going to have a lot of angry players. I remember discussions when they asked their player base about stuff they should sell in a in game store for GW2 this was a big deal for what was seen to be a bad thing. Many players said they would not buy the game etc if they were to do something like that. In fact I remember at least one other game that made something exclusive to the in game store that was perceive to be a core game element that should be freely available and that game was closed due to a mass exodus because of that.

As far as lore goes there is no reason they couldn’t ride mounts if they wanted to. But for some reason they don’t. They never did. Officially I don’t think that is anything that was ever written specifically to confirm or deny. GW vision was to think outside the box to not be like every other game. To offer something new and exciting that demonstrated that you didn’t have to be like this or that and have a highly successful thing. In fact they broke the mold in many ways by unconventionally altering how certain things were done in every other game that players tolerated to have be the way they were when they could have been better. I seen other games change theirs to be more like GW because of that. I don’t know if not having mounts was part of this kind of thing. But I do know in other games I have played introducing mounts always came with a lot of problems and this may be the reason we don’t have them today.

Looking back at development of GW2 I remember beta being delayed for something like a year because they had to work out so many issues with under water combat. I mean one would think that it is no different that on the ground combat but a swimming animation instead of running right? Obviously a lot to it we don’t see. Adding mounts may be more complicated that we think. And mounted combat probably even more complicated on top of that. A problem I know another game I played had when introducing it into their game when they already had a mount system in place.

The change will be dramatic and could even be used as a welcome-back event of sorts.
It would be nice to have a game-changing update such as this, without having to pay an expansion price for it. Because a lot of the community feel that they paid a price for a new game, only to get a small update called HoT.

This is a valid point for anything significantly new to the game and not just mounts though. They could add anything spectacularly new to the game and achieve the same result. As far as what we have so far with the expansion, it’s value is more dependent on what we get for having bought it. People are assuming that future content releases won’t require the expansion to be able to get. This I believe is where the failure in seeing just exactly what we get for having bought it. We didn’t just buy what we have now we bought access to future content updates. It’s not like they are going to suddenly give everyone who didn’t buy heart of thorns free access to content updates that require heart of thorns.

Aside from that they do add stuff to the gem store that people like and buy. Mini pets is one of them. With the frequency of new ones they must be popular sellers. I know I have almost exclusively spent gems on mini pets. They have gotten more money from me than I typically spend on “buy the box” games. And I didn’t mind spending a little more knowing they are actively making and continually adding new story content for me to enjoy. I’m sure there is a number of other things that can be added there or more of a type of thing already there that will generate income that aren’t “mounts” and still succeed in generating income to pay for more content and improvements to existing content.

Stock prices are at 78 compared to June 2015 When it was at 86. So even after the release, they are not doing so hot.

What stock prices? Arenanet isn’t publicly traded. And as far as I’m aware Arenanet has severed ties with NCsoft which means it’s just Arenanet (if someone of official capacity can provide more detail here that would be great), no other junk titles destroying their bottom line to be potential cause of GW2 to be shutdown. But aside from that I previously posted the most recent financial info for the game which showed increase for the game not decrease. I don’t see any indications of a pending mass exodus.

Is it possible to update the dev track to better organize the info. For example can it have a by date view option with fold outs for today, yesturday, 3 days, 4 days, 5 days, 6 days 7 days ago, and over 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks 4 weeks. And organized by thread rather than every post in the thread to reduce having to scroll through dozens of posts to one or more specific threads to scan for other topics of interest the devs may be posting replies to.

I seem to remember them saying something along the lines of they are/will be working on it but it will take time to finish it. Certain aspects on LS season 1 (can we give content meaningful titles in game please it is a journal after all not an online exterior commentary) will have to be reworked into instances. Such as the zone invasions by Scarlet’s minions. The grandness of that can be retained by use of NPCs and providing some structure to going around and completing the dynamic events within the instance instead of the random aim of zerging that occurred. The amount of NPCs would decrease with the number of actual players teaming up for it. But it would be more open ended using the squad system we now have that allows for more people to be in instances you could say have 15, 20 people teaming up or as little kitten . The number of NPCs that follow the players would adjust accordingly. I don’t want to get wordy and describe out how everything would get updated to be able to replay but it is very feasible to get it done and to have it all feel much like it did with all characters being actual players. The ground work they have done in the game to date would be pointless if it wasn’t in part meant to make LS season 1 able to be replayed.

Soleil.1304:

Thank you for your personal opinion. Which I and others think is very wrong.

Mounts that give 10%-15% increased speed would not put anyone at an advantage because we already have mechanisms for that. Therefore, we do not NEED a free version of a mount. Everyone is still equal. No real need for balancing issues. The mount should be a Gem-Store item. We need to support ANET with our $$. It’ll make the game better trust me.

The need for a mount is much bigger than that. As I had mentioned before: Update, income, lore, variety and many other reasons point to the benefit of mounts. The ones I’m most concerned about is the lore and income. Mostly because low stocks and low income means slower updates and less content, and as I had mentioned in the OP, these are intelligent beings! It would be natural to have mounts which is completely missing due to a misguided innovation.

So what you are saying is we need to go faster? If that is the only reason for mounts then additional speed buffs is all we need. Not mounts. Again I’m not seeing the argument for mounts here. The because other games have them is not an argument for why any other game should have them. Again aside from the fact that in all other games the method of travel is only moving your character manually from point A to B by foot or on a mount (mount being a disguised method of increased movement speed).

As to game lore, there is no specific acceptance or refusal by the “people” of the world to riding on animals. At least as far as I know. But again since the lore is magic+tech that teleports us around more or less makes traveling on the back of animals more or less meaningless. We do have pack animals for transportation of good over short distances augmented by the asura gate travel to cut our the long distance part of the journey. If you and others would be so kind as to enlighten us as to how riding on the back of animals makes the lore of the game better I’m listening.

Now as far as their income is concerned. I don’t think there is an issue there. Last I checked the game was very healthy in that regard. We are talking something like 20 million USD per quarter here. And currently over 7 million players. That I believe puts GW2 at #3 or #4 is the top 10 populated games without searching around for the official statements from other game companies to definitively rank them. So again I’m not seeing how mounts vs any other addition to the gem store that could equally continue to bring in money is an argument that says they have to be in the game or else. But again I’m listening for why this would be better than anything else they could put in there.

And lastly, I in now way was saying that mounts shouldn’t increase movement speed. Or that anyone with one would have some sort of advantage over someone who doesn’t. I simply do not see any logical or otherwise reasoning behind having them in GW2 besides the “oh look at me I’m on a mount”. Again I’m listening for explanations to convince me that this is something we need or want in this game. I’m just not seeing the point along with a lot of others. Otherwise I think we would see more people with those few mount like things in the gem store already and we don’t. In fact I dare say there is practically nobody that uses those few things.