Guild Wars 2

I have tried 2 of the 3 I ended up coming home with for promo codes for mini-Mr.Sparkles. it didn’t work.. am I screwed out of a cool item because you guys printed duplicates?

RuneCrimson, the system simply doesn’t work that way. none of your xp is split by a grouping. you get the same xp if 2 ungrouped people kill the same mob as if 2 grouped people kill the same mob. I’d say go with a friend and test it for yourself, but it seems clear you’re not into making friends

Thanks for the reply. On the points which we agree, it is important to note that “someday” is the only source of hope for any of these things to be implemented at this point.

And in my opinion it is Anet’s job to at least not put in place a system so devoid of features that it serves to hurt guild loyalty… Being that you’re part of a smaller guild and are not particularly competitive, this issue is not one you really experience.

I can tell you that logging in to a large roster of members, with 5+ of them not representing is disheartening. And what happens when I tell them we want 100% representation? Well, they either get annoyed because i’m asking them to give up other guilds, or they choose the other guild over mine. As a guild leader, you want to log in to a community of people who are all communicating and playing with each other… GW2 doesn’t require a group to play anything but the dungeons, so the rest of the time everyone is solo… so at least it would be nice to have a lively guild chat… but nope, they’re not representing so the guild chat suffers. See what I mean? It should at least not hurt guild loyalty, and it currently does.

[Skip this first part if you are already frustrated by this issue]
First, a brief History:
When the game launched, Anet decided to do something new with guilds, make them more nebulous and allow players to be part of multiple guilds. The result was that guilds who care about building strong communities either have to force strict policies, or deal with a “I’ll help you guys when I feel like it” kind of membership base. To me, this feels like being involved in an open marriage, and is at odds with what many people are truly looking for: Community Pride.
My optimism being strong, I held out hope that some form of alliance system would be created, but thus far not even a hint of such a thing… the system doesn’t promote guild pride, and here’s why:

[Okay, start here]

Emblems, and “guild” items, what?

Guild Backpacks – They’re okay, nothing fancy, and the guild emblem is so tiny it looks like someone’s mom sewed a patch on it.

Guild Back Banners – Expensive, not very impressive looking, and forces you to give up the cool back piece you worked very hard for.

Guild Armor – A total joke IMO. For a game that prides itself on fashion design, its clear that including a guild logo was not a priority. If I want to show guild pride, I have to wear armor that in most cases feels completely wrong when combined with every other armor in the game, aside from the most basic… Is it really that hard to have a tabard that sits over one’s armor?

Guild Weapons (generation 1) – The first generation guild weapons are nicely designed, but again, the guild emblem is small and looks slapped on… it was clearly an afterthought.

Guild Weapons (generation 2) – What? No, really, What? How are these “Guild Weapons” at all? They’re a set of weapons that are shiny and have absolutely 0 guild pride… this is a blatant message from Anet: “We don’t think guild pride is important.”

Guild Banners – Oh, that thing keep seeing all over trader’s forum that I click on to gain a buff but have no idea which guild it came from as I pass by?

Where does my guild pride live?
At launch I had high hopes. But here we are almost a year into the game and the ONLY major addition to guilds is guild missions, which honestly favor larger guilds, and provide no rewards which represent the hard work of a team. Every reward is based around the individual player, and none of these rewards (besides guild banners) do anything to further the guild’s pride.

So where’s my guild house? Where’s my guild hall? Where’s My guild’s permanent place in the world? There’s so much potential for guilds to really feel like they’ve built something worth having pride in, but it just isn’t there.

Why all of the fuss?
Anet bills this game as the casual gamer’s paradise, and the hardcore gamer’s dream, all wrapped into one… but I’m not seeing where player driven communities fit into this, and it has taken it’s toll on my long-time community.

The task of generating excitement, interest, and pride rests solely on the leaders of each guild… which if you’re a casual player, leading a casual guild, means you’re doomed to never be able to build any pride.

What should be done? (the 10 tenants of guilds in MMOs)
GUILDS SHOULD:
1. be easy to join [Mission Accomplished]
2. have multiple options to show guild pride [Needs a lot of work]
3. feel like they are part of the world, and have an impact on it [NOPE]
4. have the tools needed to manage a their roster, and keep people informed [Needs a lot of work]
5. have a place to gather, and display the accomplishments of the community’s ability to work together [NOPE]
6. have a way to forge bonds with other guilds, for the purpose of joining forces and accomplishing even greater tasks [NOPE]
7. have a way for guild leadership to measure contribution and give rewards to players who are extraordinary[NOPE]
8. have an easy way to list their community in-game for new players to browse and request membership[NOPE]
9. be able to work together in various challenges [Mission Accomplished]
10. be able to compare their accomplishments with other guilds in order to see how their accomplishments compare [NOPE]

If even 3 more of these tenants were satisfied, it could go a long way to improve guild culture.

the intent behind GW2 is for players to be the “hero type”… this means that we’re generally stronger, faster, and more robust than our NPC brethren…

Thanks for the replies all. I’d love to see more people agreeing with this so that Anet can get the message… this is a much needed feature.

Please see this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Guild-to-Guild-communication-A-Severe-Gap

As Anet continues to develop and refine larger-scale content, one cannot help but notice that there is still a horrible, festering, stinking hole in the game’s social design…

First, a word on design: It is my experience (and feel free to correct me on this), that UX design is about allowing users to do what the game/application is intended to do, quickly and easily (with as few steps from A to B as possible).

It seems clear that the direction Anet is taking with GW2 is to encourage all members of a server to organize and work as a team to accomplish great things… Yet somehow they’ve left communities to slave away forming alliances via neutral (unrepresented) guilds, forums outside of the game, and long debates about which guild’s voice chat server is better…

The following is a list of features that are essential to closing this gap:

-Search needs to actually work. I should be able to find anyone on my server who is currently listed as ‘logged in’ by using this feature. The feature doesn’t work right now and its sitting there, stinking up the social design.

-Guild-to-Guild communication. I don’t really care what clever alternatives you thought were going to work… a simple, neutral channel of communication which is managed by a group of consenting guilds is needed.

-In-game community bulletins. As a feature of guild-to-guild communication, there should be a method by which players of a certain rank in each guild may broadcast a community bulletin which would show for all consenting guilds. This would be similar to the guild MOTD, and would save a history, allowing multiple announcements in a short period without fear that some people might miss a bulletin.

-working LFG. I don’t even need to explain this… just fix it… no excuses.

That’s it… that’s all that is missing from the social design. Other than that, great work! Unfortunately, the missing areas are just very big, and really do stand out… like a whitehead on the end of your boss’s nose… i mean you have to look at him when he’s talking to you… but you just wish he’d pop it already.

This is my friend Machipu. She is very good at drawing (see attached for the commission she did for me). Contact her if you’d like a drawing of your character(s)! She does everything from quick sketches for cheap, to full-color pieces at reasonable prices!
http://machipu.tumblr.com/

Things are going strong and we’ve been doing weekly bounties

Thanks to everyone who has applied, its always nice to grow an already wonderful community!

This idea came to me while we were doing the dredge fractal the other day. The boss encounter right before the Legendary elemental/mining suit has a strategy where the mobs are pulled around a corner to easily stack them up.

So here’s the idea I came up with:

Your team is given the task of penetrating, and infiltrating the ranks of a gathering army, so that you can find out their secrets, and sabotage their plans to invade the peaceful peoples of Tyria.

The first node of this encounter would involve moving unseen through a back-door-like entrance to the stronghold.

Once safely inside, the 2nd node would be to get the attention of a few guards, and lure them somewhere secluded to beat the ____ out of them. Each guard killed would leave a uniform on the ground. Each of these uniforms would be a world item which can be picked up by any player on the team. Once donned, these uniforms would be ill-fitting at best, but provide enough of a disguise to allow the party members to infiltrate un-noticed (I believe in the idea of having Asurans in oversized clothes, and charr/norn barely squeezing into under-sized armor).

The 3rd node would involve filing into the ranks of the army, and playing the part of the good soldier. Each member would form up in a line and be directed to march. For this part, the troops would march in a line from the formation area, to the podium, where the plan for attack will be announced. During the march, 5 circles of influence will show, which represent their place in line. The 5 members must stay inside their influence circles, or be disciplined for getting out of line! getting out of line more than once or twice, would result in death.

The 4th node involves blending in while the benevolent dictator makes his plans for Tyrian Domination known. At the appropriate time, players will be given the ability to cheer, salute, and geer. Performing the appropriate action during the speech will ensure that you are not suspected as a spy.

Node 5, the final node, involves sabotaging the master plan. Players will simultaneously perform several actions which will not only thwart their enemy’s plans, but it will set them back considerably in their efforts to try to build up a future assault.

that’s my idea, just thought I’d share it

Forge Fire Society is currently seeking community-focused, good-natured individuals that are looking to excel in both PvE and PvP. We cater to all play styles, by having the guild organized into houses. Each house is led by a member of The Council, who work together with our members and officers to drive the community forward. We do regular Bounty missions, fractal runs, WvWvW, and other fun activities.

For more information and to apply, please visit: http://forge-fire.net

thanks and have a great day!

I’m willing to try anything to get them to see that this was introduced, and it can be tracked to the last patch.

well its not spam if its only once per day… as long as thousands of different people do it. I’m afraid your sarcasm might be lost on some people though

Please join me in putting in a support ticket once per day to help bring attention to this issue. It is wide-spread and we continue to be ignored.

@Anet: this isn’t how I’d prefer to get a response out of you, but you’ve really put me in a corner here… many people who love this game are leaving in frustration.

if you’re like the other thousands of people, you’re experiencing lag from the server-side and they have yet to even acknowledge that it is happening yet.

this is a SERVER issue… nothing to do with meeting minimum specs.

there’s nothing WE an do… Anet needs to fix their servers…. and so far they haven’t said ANYTHING to ANYONE about this. There’s no way they’re not ignoring us at this point.

I believe this is related to their tweaking of culling. The server’s code that receives and delivers information about player/NPC location is dropping/lagging people.

I don’t even think it has to do with performance of the PC, since my laptop isn’t better than my GF’s PC and yet she lags and I do not while on the same connection.

Hey Ashley, please ask the devs for some sense okittennowledgement of the on-going lag issue that has had ZERO attention from Anet. I’m posting in this thread because apparently there is a perception that the problem affecting 1000s of players isn’t as important as one person crashing.

Hi Arenanet, please REPLY to this thread and give us an update! This is not something trivial that can continue to be ignored… your players are suffering and getting extremely frustrated!

THIS IS NOT AN ISP PROBLEM.

this is related to the servers not delivering information to the clients correctly. I know because my GF suffers from this issue and I do not.

She experiences the same symptoms as above and I do not, and we were playing on the same connection this weekend.

The kicker is this: I’m still seeing her move around in real-time with no lag on her physical location in the world. When she strafes left, I see her strafe left, no lag. But on her screen I am nowhere to be seen, having run off into the distance, or simply disappeared. The NPCs also disappear after a time, followed by being dropped from the server. Her ping never fluctuates in the slightest.

I feel as though this is a horrible side affect to a patch experimenting with culling because it seems to be triggered most often by her moving into a new area and trying to load NPCs she did not have loaded yet.

I wanted to make a new thread because I fear the devs aren’t actually paying attention to the latency thread, and probably assume that people are posting issues related to their ISPs. This is NOT related to IS kitten ues. I have experienced multiple issues where the same hardware on the same connection as in previous times exhibits different behavior following this recent patch (no change in ping, other PCs remain connected). Please pay attention to the now 27page thread and give the suffering players some assurance that you’re at least seeing this issue. Thanks!

@anet how about a reply with “we’re investigating this”? Im seeing a ton of people all experiencing the same symptoms from all over… and it seems to have started with the most recent patch.

My girlfriend and I are on the same wireless connection and yet she is getting consistently disconnected and experiencing latency frequently. This was not the case until the most recent patch. Nothing in our hardware has changed, and there is no fluctuation in ping that would indicate a network issue being responsible. The server appears to be dropping her when entering areas with a lot of mobs or players, though i cannot be certain that this is the cause (seems to happen consistently when approaching the trading post in Lion’s Arch). This appears to be a side-effect to what I suspect are tweaks to the culling code, but again I cannot be certain of that.

One of the aspects of the new guild event system that was talked about, was its ability to be used as a recruitment tool. I’d love to say I agree with this, however with the main social hub constantly being in overflow, and bounty missions being only 15minutes long, there’s very little room to recruit anyone in a user-friendly way.

Suggestion
Guild Event Browser: When preparing a guild event, players with the appropriate ranks necessary to activate guild events, may also choose to post on a guild event browser. This system would allow other players to see the the following:

Guild Name
Event Type
Status (inactive, active)
zone(s) if active
Representative (guild member to contact to participate)
Show Me (click to see relevant map information)

What this does for the game
-small guilds can find each other easier to coordinate a collaborative, mutually beneficial relationship
-individual players can easily browse and have the chance to play along side prospective guilds easily
-larger guilds can effectively draw attention to their community

I understand that many people would also like a more comprehensive LFG system in general, but I’m sure that topic has been discussed to death.

Croatoan: they scale players up for WvW and Fractals, so this is not by any means a new concept for them.

They’ve also stated publically that legendaries are always going to be “best in slot” which means that they will have to implement a system to deliver on that promise when a level increase is created.

In regards to if its even on their minds… the head of Anet stated that they plan to do it eventually, however more recently Colin said that it “might happen” and that it’s not high on their radar… so i realize its not going to happen for a while.

My reason for posting is that I was researching this stuff just to find out where they stand, and the idea came to me to allow for higher levels, while also keeping 80 as the main goal each player should have in mind… there are people on both sides of the argument on this topic, and a solution that manages to keep them both satisfied would be ideal.

There’s been some recent discussion regarding the ominous and inevitable topic of level cap increase. There are many opinions about this, and from what i’ve been reading, the consensus is “this sounds like it could go badly”.

So I did some thinking about it, and came up with the following design idea:

Make level 80 the “Apex Level”.
-Any new content that is considered higher level than 80 would result in a scale-up situation to allow players to experience new content while still leveling.
-You MUST be 80 to receive the level scaling.
-The Skills earned beyond this level will be acquired in a different fashion than 1-80.
-Higher level areas introduce a much more difficult challenge, but offer a larger reward (i’m told there’s areas like this in GW1).
————————————————————-

What this does for the game:
This allows 80 to continue to be the main goal of any new character/player. Leveling is relatively easy, and continuing to be able to play with friends even if our availability differs is key.

guild events are coming, are you part of a guild yet? come join us

We’re excited by all of the recent apps, come join our society

http://forge-fire.net if you’d like to join Forge Fire Society kitten . We lead by council, and have a lot of very experienced players (been playing since alpha).
We are on Sanctum of Rall server

Hi Tic… it sounds like You’d be a good fit in Forge Fire Society (in fact, one of our former guild names was Old Folks). We have separated our guild into houses, one of which is specifically designed for casuals. We lead by council, and you’re welcome to check us out! http://forge-fire.net
only one catch: we’re on Sanctum of Rall… if you mostly pve though, where you hang your hat shouldn’t matter

Many thanks to those who have applied in the last few days, we are currently reviewing applications and will contact you in game before the day is over

http://forge-fire.net/
designed by me, developed with a little help from some random people who were kind enough to work on the technical bits. It loads fast, pops, and doesn’t get bogged down with a lot of animations

Guild: Forge Fire Society [F.F.S]
Server: Sanctum of Rall
Playstyle: PvX
Forge Fire Society was born out of the idea that all play styles could unite under one guild banner. We’re led by council, not a single guild leader. Each council member heads up his/her own house, which represent various play styles.
House Ardens is a care-free, PvX house that is focused on all aspects of the game.
House Ferro is a house of people dedicated to PvP, and organized gaming
House Ustura is for players who are interested in all aspects of GW2, and love to share knowledge and collaborate
House Semotus is our house for those who love GW2, but cannot always be available to play due to unpredictable real-life shedules.
The guild is actively recruiting strong advocates for community. We’re looking for people who will be more than just a name on a roster, but a part of our strong bonded group.
We offer:
-Comprehensive website/forums
-Ventrilo server (large capacity)
-24/7 Gathering and Magic find bonuses
-No restrictions on guild vault items (unless still in trial membership)
-All members may activate guild buffs (want a banner where you are? go for it!)
-Helpful, experienced players
-We cater to all play styles!
for more information and to apply, please visit http://forge-fire.net

Grumpy cat is quickly becoming an internet icon, and given anet’s propensity for cat-themed minis, Grumpy Cat is a great candidate!

if you agree, please reply to this post to show support

It’s nice to see I’m not alone in this feeling

I like my engineer a lot, the only problem I have is that I don’t see a use in getting a legendary, or even a cool looking weapon on him because the kits are what I tend to utilize most and there’s currently no way to change the kits’ looks.

suggestion: Depending on the type of weapon equipped, the kit graphic will change.

example:
1-29 standard item graphics – current kit graphics
30-60 standard item graphics – higher tech, cleaner, shinier versions, with added details like more tools on the backpack of the toolkit, or making the grenade backpack look like it’s made of fine leather.
61-80 new graphics showing significantly higher-tech, shinier, and more detailed kit graphics.

for specially crafted graphics like the godskull weapons, beaded weapons and legendaries, there would be unique graphics that would better reflect the weapon(s) e0quipped underneath.

dual wielding would result in whichever graphic is in the main hand affecting the weapon portion, and whichever graphic is in the offhand affecting the backpack. This provides more chance to customize.

guild weapons would result in guild backpacks and one special guild kit graphic for each kit type.

This would go a long way to make engineers feel more in-line with the options available to classes when it comes to the look.

As a toolkit user, I’m often left wishing that I could change the look of my spanner

We’ve had some nice new members join us in the last week or 2! we’re still open to more applicants so be sure to check us out!

The guild is led by a council of elders, who work together to make sure we’re always driving the guild towards the desires of its members. We’re currently recruiting new members, and run many daily dungeons and some WvWvW.

Looking for a fun, helpful, and strongly bonded group? We’d love to have you!

Please check out Forge Fire Society Http://forge-fire.net
we are friendly and experienced. If you enjoy chatting on voice chat we have many people who are very kind and funny.

POLEARMS! Especially for guardians, warriors, and for some reason mesmers.

I’ve noticed that there are a few items which are account bound, which are not really the type of thing that should be allowed to be part of the economy, but should be able to be shared among guild members…

Siege Weapons would be the main item that would fall into this category. It would be nice to buy a bunch of siege weapons and place them in the guild vault for anyone to use.

http://forge-fire.net
we have several couples in the guild who play together, and are all older mature players with the patience to teach, and the sense of humor to have fun!

we’ve really been picking up in activity lately! running lots of dungeons and helping out wherever needed. No matter if you’re a new player or an experienced one, this is the place to become part of a great community!

we’ve had quite a few applicants recently! If anyone is interested, we’re still accepting.

thanks took me about 45mins all in all…

I made this for my girlfriend for christmas

I noticed that we end up with an odd number of cogs, and re-doing the tixx events doesn’t seem to yield any… how is anyone expected to get all of the toys made?

Hello all, we’re still actively recruiting and our numbers have grown a bit in the past few days if you have any questions, please post them here.