Guild Wars 2

I admit missing out on being a dedicated healer. I’ve never enjoyed the frantic pace of dps as much as standing back and supporting the group. I didn’t even like certain Monk healing in WoW (where you healed by doing some dps). But I also admit that I felt bad always seeing people begging in chat for a tank or healer.

I would be happy if we were given the option to gear/trait with a more traditional trinity arrangement. This way groups of players who want to play a dedicated healer/tank could do so. If they made it so that self-healing and defenses of ‘dps builds’ were significantly less, healing for ‘healer builds’ were more expansive and effective (while dps is significantly less), and aggro management and defenses for ‘tank builds’ is powerful while dps and self healing get dropped way down, it could work.

But, any groups who did NOT want to do this could just spec normally and everyone could be dps with healing and defensive abilities like it is now. This way people wouldn’t have to worry about waiting for a ‘tank’ or ‘healer’. They could opt in for the regular GW2 combat and go have fun.

Danikat.8537:

I’m unconvinced that any game could constantly occupy someone for years on end without them getting bored ….

I played SWG for about 3 years non-stop. I put in at least 14 hours a week, and was not playing any other game during that time. But then, I was a crafter/merchant/miner/guild leader/mayor, and always had lots to do (and I was younger and had less responsibilities, heh). The point is that if the game has enough gameplay options, players will find more to do. I think GW2 is in a decent enough place though. It was never meant to be a sandbox. I just took a year+ break, and should find enough to keep me busy for a little bit. Well, once I figure out the trait change stuff.

To be honest, I think they should put some effort into the guild structure and functions to make it easier for guilds to succeed, and also to let us customize our home instances dramatically. Those two things could help make the game a little stickier.

That was a cool read. Where are we right now? The last part of season two? The Cave?

I honestly don’t remember exactly where in the Story I was when I stepped away, but it was a while before Lion’s Arch was destroyed even. Ugh. I will go look through the wiki and try to figure it out. I wonder if there is Season 1 stuff I missed too. Thanks for the heads up!

I’ve been away for a long time, and I see it’s for sale. I happen to be on a level 46, and have My Story done up to 4 (need to be 50 for the next). Does living World Season 2 unlock for me at some point, or do I have to buy it to see what it is? So… can someone summarize what that’s about? I feel so lost, lol…

I had this same problem. Any item I tried to buy I got the "Sorry! Your order did not match any current listings. Pleas refresh, yadda yadda

After looking through maybe 15 threads, I found the answer. At least for me. I had already deleted the “gw2cache——” folder from User\AppData\Temp, restarted the client, cleared my browser cache, rebooted the computer, and repaired the client.

Then I saw someone who said ti happened if you use the command line option to launch the game. The one where you can enter your username and password -nopatchui thing. I have been runnign like that for a few days now. So I launched the game via the normal login shortcut, and bought off the TP no problem.

What a pain…. the command line shortcut is very handy.

I wish ANet would adopt a subscriber option to pay for the game. ToR does it pretty well, but their F2P is way more restrictive than GW2. If I could pay $15 a month to get an ‘allowance’ of 1,000 gems a months, plus some other minor perks like reduced prices in the gem market, I would. I actually am starting to dislike the requirement for F2P games populate their paid market with ‘cool’ stuff so people will send the company money. ANet charges about 50% too much for most everything on the gem market anyway. Let the F2P people pay regular over-priced amount, and subscribers get it for 50% off. THat being said, I haven’t felt any particular desire to buy anything off the gem market in a long time. I got the character slot and inventory stuff I wanted, and dipped my toe in the completely stupid RNG ANet loves so much a single time (dye), and said enough. Hell, I don’t even bother with RNG buying dye’s with laurels. It’s a sucker play. I guess they are happy with the people who pay. They still haven’t caught on to the reality that they will make MORE money if they reduce the cost of gem store stuff when a LOT more people buy.

tolunart.2095:

Toxophile.6215:

… dreaming that ANet will stop punishing players with horrible RNG, the mystic toilet, and stupidly monotonous and incredibly expensive process to get the cool skins.

You’re punishing yourself if you obsess over getting “stuff” (and virtual “stuff” that will never actually exist, at that!) as though having Twilight and burning armor and an Ascended Amulet and a cool title will somehow make the game more meaningful.

It’s the journey that matters, and imagine the other side, where you do X, then Y, then Z and you’re guaranteed to have everything you want from the game. Players will discover the fastest route to X, a way to skip Y altogether, and a secret way to accomplish Z without any effort and all of a sudden everyone has everything and nothing means anything because everyone is the same.

The “punishment” exists because it’s human nature, and if they hand you everything in the game on a silver platter you’ll taste a little of this, a little of that, and get bored and complain that it’s all too easy, there’s no challenge to anything… in short, there is no correct way to handle this process, the devs have to decide whether money = rewards, time = rewards, skill = rewards, etc. They chose a little of everything, and so some aspects reward patience and persistence while others offer shortcuts.

Maybe I should have put an emphasis on the word “stupidly”. I dont mind it being a long process. What I DO mind is forcing us to grind to get materials like T6 stuff that has stupidly low RNG chance and DR. Or forcing us to use a punishing and stupid mystic toilet with it’s RNG. For people who don’t like grinding or farming, they face the distasteful choice of either buying gold from farmers to just buy the skin or settling for a year+ long wait? Why can’t the process to get cool skins be something about the Story? Or about completing complicated achievements? Or anything other than farming or grinding?

People who think they are some kind of special for having a legendary are just idiots. It’s not “hard”. It’s not some special accomplishment. It’s just proof they either buy their gold or they are willing to monotonously grind for hours on end. I’m not willing to grind OR buy gold, so I accept I will never have a legendary. At least with SAB I was able to get a cool skin by doing something with my guild or friends.

Again, I dont mind it being a ‘process’. It should take time, and people who are willing to or able to spend months doing something unhealthy for the game like grinding should not be rewarded for it. Rather, people who are willing to spend months doing something positive for the game, defeating challenges, and improving the game should be rewarded.

Something just occurred to me that I hadn’t really thought about before. This whole “invested in my character” thing; what’s that about? I mean, I get wanting them to look cool or have a cool title or something, but I wonder if that phrase might be mis-applied? Maybe it would be more accurate to say “I want to be invested in the game”?

My first major MMO was Star Wars Galaxies, and I was there for about 5 years. My next one was WoW, and I was there for maybe 2. Now GW2.

In SWG, I was majorly invested in the game. You only got one character per account (which made sense considering the depth and breadth of the game), but I never felt ‘attached’ to my character. I was attached to the game. I interfaced with the game via a particular avatar (I got a second account shortly after getting going because there was so much to do that I needed a second), but it was the GAME I was invested in.

In WoW, I got all kinds of characters, but the game was kinda shallow. The multiple characters allowed me to experience more of the game, one shallow slice at a time for each character. But after the first few characters, it got monotonous. But more importantly, there wasn’t much reason to become invested in the game. The only thing holding me there that long was reaching level cap’s (and the attached gear grind), trying the different healing roles (mostly PvP), improving my skill as a healer, and seeing the different zones.

In GW2 there are several different story lines, but they become more and more homogenized the higher level you get. Then there are the overpriced and punitive RNG quest for shiny skins. There is WvW, which has become more and more stale with each passing week (thanks to zergs allowed by AOE caps and no challenging NPC’s). sPVP is about to get a cool boost, but that’s not something a majority of players enjoy doing. So all we have left is the exploration, which is pretty great. But it is a finite thing. Once you’ve seen a zone, it’s not really exciting to see it again. Or again. Or again. Holiday and special events are great and a lot of fun, but they are temporary, and in between we’re back to the same old thing.

There isn’t really any need to ‘invest’ in GW2. So, what would make me invest in the game? Player housing. A real crafting system (see SWG, DaoC, Eve… but especially SWG). A more dynamic resource system. A better market interface and limits on economic activity based on character profession investment (no expiration of item listings? Really? No limits of the number of transactions per day/week/month per account?). The ability to set up and run a personal 24/7 vendor as a way to sell goods. A serious limit on how many recipe’s you can learn at each tier per character. Lose the ability to retain profession skill’s for any that you drop.

Basically, a game where being a merchant is possible. A game where I want to spend time away from swinging a sword. Bah. Rant over I guess. I want SWG back. I guess I will have to settle for dreaming that ANet will stop punishing players with horrible RNG, the mystic toilet, and stupidly monotonous and incredibly expensive process to get the cool skins.

Holy crap. How long did this take to put together? Great post though. I especially liked the part where you ask the developers to design a game WE want to play, not a game THEY think we should want to play. Okay, you didn’t come right out and say that, but it’s there. And the dev’s should certainly do a better job of making the fights more challenging in way’s other than increasing it’s health and making it one-shot you even harder if you don’t dodge.

I also love the part where they need to make different goals of a boss fight more interesting. Like you say, no one wants to guard the stupid npc’s, we want to fight the boss! But if the fight to protect the NPC’s is fun AND is required to complete the overall event, people will do it.

I would love to see the AI get better, allowing a bos to move independently, using terrain and LoS to it’s advantage. How cool would it be for a boss to dodge your big attack?! Or to move into a narrow corridor to defend itself more easily?

All in all, ANet is doing pretty well as far as I am concerned, but I want this game to grow exponentially, and making the math behind the game more engaging will draw players like flies. Let’s hope they start making rewards equal to the task (and no more punitive freaking RNG!!!!).

I’m thinking the lava effect is going to get old pretty quick. That plus the fact it is character bound, and the pretty steep cost for something only a single toon can use. I think I will just keep using the karma picks. And who mines copper at level 80 anyhow? lol. But that all being said, and with the current restrictions, if they had priced it at 400 gems, I would have been certainly bought at least 1. If it stayed account bound after use, I would have bought it at 600.

I’m willing to bet that pretty much any serious Guild would agree that getting members of the guild to participate on the external guild forums is like pulling teeth. Shoot, just the idea of having to register and apply on a internet forum is likely preventing a lot of people from bothering with guilds at all. Solution?

In game, guild-specific forums, browse-able from the game client OR a regular browser (but at least it should be a part of the game UI).

This forum should be integrated with the guild, allowing for permissions, poll’s, a calendar, a standardized membership application, and several open boards that can be set up by the guild leadership for different topics.

Let’s make it easier for people in-game to participate on guild forums!

It certainly isn’t as easy to find a decent guild as I had wanted. Once you do find one though, it’s pretty nice. Sadly, the only way’s to find such a guild is to hop around, which is a pain in the behind thanks to website registration, voicechat setups, in game convo’s with an endless stream of people…. such a pain.

The best way really is to either join a guild suggested by a real-life friend, or to befriend someone from a certain guild, getting to know that person and by extension their guild. If that works out, your new friend will certainly end up inviting you to join. This would require some cold-call stuff that some people don’t like. Just out of the blue saying hi and seeing if they want to hang out. But if you can do it, and if you find yourself in a decent guild, it really is worth it.

It’s dropped pretty severely from what it was 6 weeks ago. They are trying to get you to spend cash in the store on over-priced dye packs. They recently nerfed how frequently you get rare’s from the laurel vendor.

It might not be a bad idea to take some time off from GW. They are still settling into their long-term phase, and it will take time (hopefully) for the deeper lore to get rolled out. Slow down, pace yoruself, get out of Tyria for a little bit. You own the game, so you can come back any time. Give it a few months and check in to see what’s new.

It’s safe to say that most people who’ve been playing for a few months now are pretty familiar with the game, done most of the stuff to do enough that it’s lost some of it’s charm, and are starting to catch glimpses of other, fresh games. I still enjoy playing, but I have done most of the things I want to do, and the past month have been pretty much just logging in to do daily’s, and I might find a way to fill in another half hour or so before I log out. I liked the daily’s for one reason: laurels. I like laurels for one reason: Dye. And in the beginning, it went pretty well. The first set I bought I got a midnight ice. The second set I got a midnight fire and another rare (frost I think). My third set I got 2 rares (blue and a gray I think). My gf got a red rare her first set, and a blue rare the second set. The third set she got a white and a bluish rare.
So I’m thinking, okay, this is cool. It should only be a few months till we both have the color’s we want on most of our toons. Neither of us are interested in anything else offered on the laurel vendor. Gear is too random (you get stuff you might not even use in your chosen spec), T6 too blah, ascended stuff, gag me.

So what’s my beef? They nerf’d the rare dye in laurel’s. On both our accounts, the past 6 purchases (combined), we have gotten zero rare dye. Yeah, RNG is random and all that bullcrap, whatever. They nerfed it because they want people to buy the dye packs on the store. I get that, it’s fine. We both buy stuff from there, I have 3 slots and a half dozen inv expansions. She buys clothes (gag), and we’ve both bought one dye set. It isn’t worth it to purchase dye in the store. Too expensive, not account-wide.

Anet, make your money selling stuff people WANT, and at a reasonable price! We dont WANT boxing gloves, or str boosters, or mini’s. 95% of everything is too expensive by half! We would gladly give you guys more of our money (real cash, not gold, we spend it too fast) if the ROI seemed worth it. And making it harder (longer, more expensive in-game and out) to get the things we want (like rare dye, slots, inv, repair cannisters, BLKit’s, etc) makes us want to play less. This is a dangerous thing for a game with no subscription. If I get hooked on some other shiny game, you guys won’t be seeing any money from me for a while. If ever.

I have multiple characters, and each one gives me a reason to play. But if you take away some of those reasons by making the game less rewarding, I will find it harder and harder to log in. Daily’s are not ‘fun’. They are something relatively easy we can do that allows us, over time, to get things we want in game. The time we spend each week/month doing them is no longer worth it for our two accounts. Whatever. I vented, and I feel better, despite knowing ANet doesn’t read rant posts, and that even if they did, they don’t care about a couple people out of the many.

umm… vulgarity script changed “kung eff you” to “kungkitten”? lolz Bruce Lee would be mad.

I freaking hate all the kitten kungkittenzombies out there. It’s such a cheap move to give them such a speed boost.

I’d like to be able to wear town clothes in combat as well. Or at the very least, be able to prevent the auto-revert to armor when you take damage/portal etc. Since we can skin our armor, in PvE at least it doesn’t provide an advantage to disguise the kind of armor you have on. I could see a very small chance WvW could be excluded, and a much stronger change sPvP would be excluded. But really, who cares what a person is wearing. It’s not like I would fight any different if the person was wearing a holiday outfit or some spiky set of armor.

I would buy the boxes and save the drops/flasks etc you get out of them. This way when/if something else useful is ever introduced, you can get it on any character.

I agree with Blacklight. You don’t “need” to be fully geared to enjoy the game. I have 4 80’s, but only 1 has mostly exotics (missing jewelry, back, and 1 weapon). My other 80’s are mostly in rares I crafted with maybe 1 piece of exotic bought with karma. Oh, I have one mystic toilet weapon on one of them.

I have a total of 8 slots so I can have one of each of the classes I like (I just can’t get it up for engineer or warrior) and the others range between low 60 to high 20’s. I just really like being able to use the different playstyles. So my advice is to re-roll, and stop worrying about the freaking ‘end game’. Just have fun in the game. Join that big guild and spend your limited time getting to know some of the people you play along side with.

ANet should just make it so that grinding for gold isn’t the ‘end game’ any more.

We should at least be able to put 3 pieces into the mystic toilet along a 4th something that will result in some other piece of bind-on-use gear. As it is, if you mystic toilet 4 pieces of karma gear, you get another piece of gear with the same freaking restrictions.

Look up “gw2zoomunlocker”.

Dante.1508:

Nothing really makes a dye rare other than the silly people who will pay stupid prices for them..this is the lead cause of price hikes, if no one purchased them, the prices would come down.

Seriously i can make a nice color combo easy and cheaply without ever needing a black or white color..

Crafting dyes is pointless, you need stupid amounts of items to make them kinda like most other crafting in this game, Anet hates crafters in my opinion..

This isn’t realistically true, thanks to the stupid TP we have. People put a sell order up, and then walk away. Forever. It’s only those very conscious of their market transactions that pay attention. I’ve checked my standing “sell” orders 2 times in the 3 months I have played. I just forget. It’s not like I have 15 copper and need cash right now to portal somewhere. I think a great many people are like that. They see what they can get for something, and they list it, then just forget about it. It’ll sell when it sell’s and I don’t want to pay another 15% fee to re-list it (and playing the 1c undercut game).

The crafting of dye’s is a real pet peeve of mine. How completely stupid is that? The mat’s are completely ridiculous. But, when you see that there is a dye kit in the Store, it all makes sense. Sadly. I wish ANet could figure out how to make money in a better way. Maybe people can buy some kind of ‘booster’ in the Store (or loot with a low RNG chance) that you put into the Mystic Toilet with a crafted dye that will guarantee a rare return.

Pirlipat.2479:

I think that this speed consuming way to play games is a threat, not for the game in general, but for the aspects I like in this game. There are so many really cool things to explore, to see, to experience and I really wonder if many people actually enjoy those.

You can discover a zone by really exploring it or by running from one point to another, not recognising anything, doing all the hearts not even knowing who they are, jump from vista to the next skillpoint challenge, fast, fast, fast… At the end all content is done and people are demanding for more, more shinies, more reward more, more more.

I’ve really wondered why developers in MMOs make the effort to write questlines and to make a living world when people seem to be happy with click, check, run and gain “reward.”

The consequence mostly is that content gets artificially elongated by needing insane amounts of mats or time or other things, just to keep people occupied to the game.

QFE. If people would chill out a little, there is so much to do. The problem is, they have been trained from previous games to look only at what the game developers have coded for content. There is a whole lot of ‘content’ to be enjoyed from socializing with your fellow gamers. Content that has little to do with RNG, loot, efficiency, or shinies. The game is called “Guild” Wars, after all (yeah, I’m not exactly sure how to explain the second word). You can’t blame the power-gamers too much. Like I said, they have been trained to do this. It’s just sad to think about all the real, human interaction and potential friendships they have been missing out on. These things are a force multiplier for fun in any game. Running around a starter zone that you are sick-to-death of can become quite fun if you are doing it with a group of friends.

In this game, they are the enemy. In a subscriber-based game, they are part of the motivation to keep adding content (thus making the game a better value for everyone). GW2 is (or was?) meant to be a casual game with challenging content, and several ways for people to enjoy themselves. What happened was the kitten showoffs flocked here so they could work (WORK) really hard to be the best-est and biggest show-off in a new game (there were too many other uber players in their other game, making them less special). Using techniques learned from other grindfest’s, the quickly reached the end of the road, and every day more and more people are reaching the same level as them… once again, they are getting less and less “special”, and they can’t STAND that! So, either they leave (we hope!) for another game where they can tie in their self-worth to their characters status, or they scream and complain that there is nothing to do here.

Every time I see someone run by with a legendary, I feel sad for them. They have rocketed through the game and now what? Sure, there are certainly some who got it via normal play (and most of them will claim that), but so many got it via what I consider a really unhealthy playstyle. Anonymity, envy, a poor sense of self-worth, too much free time, neglect for the real world, and a desperate desire to be admired all conspire to different degree’s in the quest for video game pride.

I second the request for the Combat Mode guys to make a tiny mod that changes the reticle!!

I bought one box and got 2 rares. One was a 1H sword (not used in my build and wrong stats anyway) and a pair of boots with 1 stats not in my build, but better overall than the green’s I was wearing. I was underwhelmed, but it was my fault because I never considered that the boxes don’t know what build you are working toward. TO monetize laurels I will end up going T6 or Dye. Probably T6 tho.

It’s probably more like I play too many characters. I have 4 80’s now, but only 1 in full exotic armor (rare weapons and jewels). I play a couple hours most nights, and an extra few on the weekend, but I am all over the place usually. The funny thing is, I consider myself to be casual, in that I don’t care about legendaries (but only because the process is, IMO, a damaging playstyle to encourage) and I’ve only ever run AC regularly. I have at least 1 craft at 400 on every toon, and one of them has all 8 at 400. I’ve never finished a storyline, leaving off at about 75%.

Basically, I am not hardcore at anything, and the 50 SP requirement seems pretty hardcore. You guys may not consider yourselves to be, but from my perspective, you are. And this means that the SP method isn’t a valid alternative to any of the other methods to get into exotics for people who aren’t hardcore about playing the game.

Hmm, didn’t know about the fractal thing, thanks. I don’t have a ‘main’, so all my SP are spread out, and it will only get worse as I work on more characters. All together I might have about a hundred, but you obviously can’t consolidate them on one toon… The costs is still pretty ridiculous for the time needed to earn 50SP, even using the fractal method. And again, there are T6 mats and the kitten scroll to consider. All that put together, 5 to 10 SP seems a better number.

I clicked on this just today, then realized I’ve never seen any place where the thread would be listed. So apparently this has never been fixed?

We hatesess antssess!!

DOn’t forget that each of the 5 tasks take a certain amount of time. Maybe the ‘casual’ guy doesn’t have time to complete 75 underwater kills, 15 vet’s defeated, 15 Events, 60 gatherings, and 30 Allies healed during his once-every-three-days-playing.

But the bottom line is that if you can’t log in during a 24 hour period, then you should have no expectation for any optional ‘reward’ that has nothing to do with your ability to enjoy the game.

The problem with Combat Mode is that it totally changes the way you play. I tried it out a couple times, but it was just so hard to get used to. And I didn’t like not being able to look around while fighting. But, losing the cursor is such a huge problem in big fights that I will probably end up trying it yet again.

This is just so kitten By the time I got any of my characters to 80, the most extra SP I had was 30ish. In the time it would have taken me to earn another 20 SP to buy a SINGLE Mystic exotic, I could have gotten enough rare’s to salvage for exto’s and made my own freaking weapon. So what, are there meant for some other purpose, like putting into the forge to try and get something else? Or just salvaging?

For them to be actually worth it, ANet would have to reduce the SP requirement to 10. Then it might actually be worth it to get ll the other mats together to make these items.

It’s called a Toilet for a reason. Don’t contribute tot he madness! If people stop flushing their gold, ANet will be forced to do something about it eventually. Whatever they do can’t be any worse than what they have already done.

Sometimes I feel like this game is just a front for Smith to play out his economic fantasies. A Walmart degree probably doesn’t lend much chance at a real job in economics. We really could use an economist here though, one who understands this is a GAME.

Not really worth it, unless you wanna salvage for ecto. How sad is that!? I just bought my first one last night for a new Guardian. I got 2 rares, one of them a 1H sword I won’t use (wrong stats and I use GS/Staff), and the other a pair of boots with 2 out fo 3 stats okay.

So I logged in my Armorcrafter and made a suit of rares for myself. I could have bought dye’s instead, and had a better chance at getting something valuable.

Lutinz.6915:

/snip: The difference was that my teammates had to have the foresight to take advantage of the fields I had set up and respond to them. It required playing smarter for both them and me.

I think this bears highlighting. IMO, the WoW-style trinity system uses personal skill to benefit a group. As a good healer, you help the group. In GW2 system, your effect on the group is, to varying degree’s, dependent on the group!

Put another way, in the traditional trinity, the efforts of 5 individuals working independently determined the success or failure of the group. In GW2, the efforts of 5 individual’s working together determine the success or failure of the group.

This is pretty much the source of all the hate in a classic trinity: “Learn to play noob healer! Not my fault, the tank sux! Yeah, well you did like 2,500 dps on the last boss you noob. I did that much on my healer!”

Not to mention the difficulty finding someone to fill that the required tank/healer role. To be honest, I liked the healer playstyle a lot in WoW, and do miss it sometimes here. But I finally got my guardian up to 80 last night, and spec’d into an Altruistic Healer…. and man, I am seeing some green numbers pop on the group!

I think ANet could buff the healer spec’s slightly, but I do not want to see a classic trinity here. Or Healbot. Or Recount. Or Deadly Boss Mobs.

Mourningcry.9428:

Just to put a little perspective on things, let’s take a look at actual pricing.

Take Charged Lodestones, which are one of the currently highest priced items required for many of “exclusive” items available. They’re currently being priced between 3.25 and 3.5g a piece. The Gifts that use them require 100 lodestones.

Now also take into account many of the posts around that offer guides to earning 3-6g per hour (there are some claiming as high as 10g) but lets say 3.5g per hour for the sake of this discussion as a reasonable rate.

Simple math, /snip

You assume farming for gold is fun. This is a game. We play to have fun. Not everyone finds running in a circle killing the same things for an hour to make a gold fun.

The problem is that a capitalist system in a GAME is a mistake. It’s awesome in the real world, but harmful in an environment where people are supposed to be more equal. A more ‘managed’ economy is better for a game. One that will reward people who like to play the market, but not so much over those who do not, and where people who don’t play the market have a small advantage in a different way over those who do play the market.

The ability to get the most desirable shinies in this game should be equal between those who like to play the game, and those who like to play the market, and those who like to farm. All three kinds of people are playing the ‘game’, but the latter two are playing a very narrow slice of it. It’s not fair to punish people who choose not to play those two narrow slices of the game by saying it will take them 5 times or 50 times as long to get something many people want.

Our resident economist seems powerless to affect the faucets and drains in this game, and it’s not going to get any better. I predict that unless appropriate steps are taken, by the 1 year anniversary, HEart rewards will start going up to compensate for the desirable items in game becoming too expensive for casual players to attain. It will be easier for ANet to just give people more money than fix the problem.

And “Economy”, and I use that term very loosely, with 7 figures worth of things like cinnamon sticks or logs is screwed. 8 million candy corn? Seriously? What ‘goal’ does that serve?

Heck no! Almost nothing in the gem store is worth what they charge for it. The only thing that I feel is worth the cost (not to say I wouldn’t mind them dropping the price, heh) is the character slot. That’s it. One thing in the whole store.

That’s not to say that the other stuff isn’t useful or fun, just that they are way overpriced. Is it better to make less net $$ by selling few items for high cost, or more net $$ by selling more stuff at lower cost? I believe that if they were to permanently slash prices by 50% on 98% of stuff in the store, they would end up with quite a bit more income from it. And take a huge chunk of Gold out of the economy at the same time.

The other benefit to this is that they get more players to register their credit cards, and this makes it even easier the next time around to buy Gems. It’s a freaking game ANet!!

The crafting in GW2 has so much potential. But ANet has followed the same path that pretty much every other MMO since Star Wars Galaxies by putting in a system that is, for all intents and purposes, useless once you get the Xp from leveling it.

Out of the thousands of things we can make from all 8 crafting professions, it seems as though there are maybe 40 that people actually want to use. Mostly certain food, potion, sigil/rune items.

There are several exotics that could be useful if the cost for them wasn’t exorbitant and the market upside down on the cost to make. Being help hostage to ecto’s was a horrible decision. The effort to be able to make exotics isn’t remotely worth what you can get out of making and selling them.

I guess I am just frustrated that yet another MMO has come out catering to the “I don’t want to give other players (greedy thieves) money for my gear!!” player base.

I don’t bother logging in at times like this. When one server can field over a hundred on every map, why bother? Yeah, maybe we could have some success on a single map. Maybe a second even. In the end though, I’m left with a huge dent in my cash and a few hours of some higher ticks. Whoopee.

If ANet would remove the stupid penalty for death in WvW I would be on a whole lot more.

As other have said, the crap loot isn’t worth the thrill of victory.

Use it. Love it.

And the process feeds on itself. There is no chance in hell I am going to stay on this server. I want to have fun in WvW. I am therefore required to transfer to one that isn’t 15 feet below the bottom of the pack. I will end up reinforcing the cycle of imbalance. But the only other option is to stay and let other guys have all the fun and I get to sell loot and resources to pay for my repair bills.
ANet really should do something about this. Put a more aggressive buff in for the team at the bottom of the rank commiserate with the beating they are taking. For the screenshot referenced above, I’d say a 300% across-the-board buff would suffice until the bottom team closes to within a reasonable distance of the other teams. That means 2 times the damage, 3 times and health, 3 times the duration of boons, and 3 times the XP/Karma/Loot.
Once all 3 teams are within a “fair” range of each other, them buff goes away. This means the better team will still stay on top, but it won’t be a blowout, and everyone gets to have fun.

Oddly, that doesn’t stop these winning teams from loggin in. Hell I can’t even run around in my city clothes and get POI without being run down by packs of 5. I guess outnumbering both other teams combined by 10 to one isn’t a problem.

How is that even remotely allowed to happen? How is it that the other 2 servers don’t have a 250 million health point bonus to their health and 50 thousand bonus to every damaging attack they do?