Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

So you like dungeons and that’s your play style. The fractals is real. Molten facility is real. Everything else is a waste. I know people who like neither the fractals nor the molten facility and consider them a waste of programmer’s time.

But it’s more than that. Because guild missions ARE permanent content that at least some people seem to like, but you seem to ignore them. So fractals aren’t the only permanent content.

And yes, I’m a PVe player too, we still exist. But not every PVe player is necessarily a dungeon crawler.

Perhaps I was a bit hasty in my response, as I am not just a dungeon crawler, or just a PvE player. I very much enjoy the addition of guild missions, and the group cohesion/coordination required for the more challenging ones like T3 bounties or guild puzzles. Keeping this in mind, it still seems like a development oversight to have a game in which equipment can even be “best-in-slot” and not have the kind of content which would keep a player coming back for more once they’ve got their full set of Arah gear, for example. My issue is not that of having absolutely nothing to do, by any means, it is more an issue of the ambiguously-proposed future changes that could allow for at least a greater variety of content to experience before slamming into that inevitable brick wall.

[edited for quotation]

Having played a very lengthy list of MMORPG’s, dating back to near-launch EverQuest, it is not difficult to understand a player’s frustration regarding whichever of the varieties of content that attracts their attention most. Since Fractals were introduced, which I still run and enjoy for the most part, there has been no new content. For a PvE-focused player (yeah we still exist), it has taken a concerted effort on my part to not get burnt out on the game that I still do enjoy.

I won’t claim to be a master of game design, or even to know a kitten thing about it, but I do know that for months I’ve been participating in limited-time events with some mediocre and/or lateral game changes being implemented. These events required developer time and energy that could have gone towards expanding the game beyond a few aesthetics and achievement points. The one exceptional piece of intermediate content, as I’m sure many will agree, was Molten Weapons Facility. To go from that to the rather pathetic Canach/Subdirector encounters does not exactly inspire too much hope.

On the PvP end of things, the only “improvements” (strong euphemism), aside from those finitely measureable WvW incentives, have been limited to sPvP – something about as closely-connected to the actual game as Super Adventure Box was. There’s nothing wrong with having an insular portion of the game to provide entertainment for people that want to experience it. There is, I believe, a problem when the development and focus on the aforementioned, glorified mini-game begins to outweigh that of the actual game by all appearances.

If you want to see what it looks like when you abandon your main player-base in order to capitulate to the masses and/or rake in as much money as possible, imagine what’s going to happen when GW2 becomes the next SWToR.

Could not possibly agree more with the sentiment of the OP, having played since late beta/early launch, and having seen how other MMO’s have developed (or failed to) over the years. Monthly events are nice, Fractals as a persistent thing was nicer. For some strange reason though, countless hours which could have been spent on effectively timeless game content have instead been used for…a tribute to 8-bit gaming via a time-restricted event and relating weapon skins? I can appreciate nostalgia, time-limited events, and all that other stuff. But having leveled four 80’s, done the best-in-slot thing, a PvE player is left with much to be desired as far as content goes.

Aside from the suggestions that have already been posted, my advice (specifically regarding the “learn to dodge” thing) is to watch for the red combo fields, count to three, then press dodge. It seems elementary, but if timed right, this tactic will allow you to avoid all trap-based encounters similar to this one.

Incident: 121223-002?525, yet again.

With each of the two responses received, at the rate of about once a week, the ticket has been repeatedly either mishandled or misunderstood. Please escalate my support ticket so that I may still have a chance to recover and continue what 500~ hours of otherwise fantastic gaming has allowed me to accomplish.

Talk to the vendor standing on the lilypad in the reflecting pool, he should have all the rewards you’ve unlocked.

I know that the topic appears needlessly redundant, but it seems to that – assuming hacked account restoration is as much a concern as certain posts lead one to believe – there should be some differentiation between the general nature of the already-existing thread, which covers a very broad range of support tickets, and how quickly it is “refreshed” by people in a situation similar to mine (which is apparently much more common than I had anticipated).

While I will not speak for others specifically, my initial ticket (Ref #: 121223-002525, the title of which contained the phrase “account hacked”) was met with a response regarding resetting my password via serial key verification, almost as if the title and contents of the ticket were glossed over entirely. The title of my ticket was changed by this first representative to “Access Lost,” an undoubtedly misleading header to a far more complex issue.

(Potential TL;DR bait to come)

The second, far more frustrating “solution” to my ticket, which had been listed as updated with my account pending restoration, contains the following text copied from the email as follows:

“Thanks for your patience during our investigation. After taking a look at the game logs, I found that your account was accessed prior to December 1, 2012, which is before our restoration tool became available. Please understand that the restoration tool works by creating a “snapshot” of a player’s account when the server data is regularly backed up. As these “snapshots” were not being created before December 1, 2012, we do not have a valid restore point for your account and will be unable to restore any items or characters missing before that date.However, I have gone ahead and transferred your home world back…"

Again, I am unsure if any part of my ticket was read or considered, as part of the details I included was the exact window within which my account was (in some order resembling this) moved from my home server to a French-speaking European server, each character stripped of its valuables down to all that could be salvaged or sold, and all of the account’s valuables were then removed. By the time I realized what had happened, after a failed login attempt prompted me to notice the connection of a foreign (and obviously unauthorized) IP address on the other side of the country, it was too late.

Now, that being said, I would be able to understand if the supposed “snapshot” required for account restoration were inaccessible had my account been inactive, but having personally logged in on a near-daily basis between November 31 and December 22/23 (the date of the reported incident), I find it difficult to believe that the “solution” I waited over a week for is effectively “sorry you lost everything, but you can keep playing if you want” from the same company that I remember suspending sales of digital game copies due to overwhelming demand.

The apparent disparity in customer satisfaction/loyalty aside, I very much doubt that a GM can access/view any log related to my account and come to a conclusion aside from something resembling what I initially submitted, and consequently updated with a decent amount of detail, in my original ticket. I was logged in the days adjacent to the implementation of the Account Restoration Tool, and enough days afterward to know that if any account has a “snapshot” of it, mine is certainly one.

Apologies in advance for the thread length, ranting, and probable mis-placement of such a thread/complaint. The ticketing/support system is very much overwhelmed, that much is clear. What is not clear to me is why hacked accounts and their respective tickets (by ANet’s own admission it would appear, based on the response I received) are being brushed aside, ignored, or very clearly mis-resolved in an ostensible effort to not actually address the issue(s) at hand.

If you made it this far, and are in a similar boat to the one I find myself, please help make it clear to anybody reading that (holidays aside) waiting a week per invariably failed attempt to resolve these tickets regarding very obviously hacked accounts is unacceptable. I must stress however that this thread is intended only to separate those whose support tickets meet the criteria as stated in the title, and not lump these “high priority” cases with those which can/are much more easily dealt with. Thanks.

P.S. As posted by Gaile Gray in the “Account Issues, Tickets for Review…” thread, the status of my account was most recently “121223-002525 In queue for restoration,” (searching the forums for the ‘In queue…’ phrase returns a total of four tickets apparently addressed similarly) which would indicate to me both that the review stage had been completed and a “snapshot” did indeed exist.

Ref: 121223-002?525

This is the second time since December 22/23, when my account was very obviously hacked and liquidated of all its assets, that I have had my problems totally ignored by whichever obviously well-intentioned CSR employee answered my support ticket, only now it seems as if I am being told not-so subtly that I will be offered no assistance.

In response to what had appeared on the forums as a “pending restoration,” I received an e-mail (the bulk of it below) which I can only perceive as something of a joke. Am I to understand that only those accounts created on or after December 1 are eligible for the ART? Or am I being told that since the implementation of this tool, no measures were taken to ensure that it would actually function? I am honestly confused, to say the very least, and would appreciate a bit of clarity.

“Thanks for your patience during our investigation. After taking a look at the game logs, I found that your account was accessed prior to December 1, 2012, which is before our restoration tool became available. Please understand that the restoration tool works by creating a “snapshot” of a player’s account when the server data is regularly backed up. As these “snapshots” were not being created before December 1, 2012, we do not have a valid restore point for your account and will be unable to restore any items or characters missing before that date.However, I have gone ahead and transferred your home world back to…"

Reference #: 121223-002525

Stated as “In queue for restoration,” just wondering how long the process might take at this point, as it seems the account restoration has already been approved.

Karolis.4261:

Bah, just kill them all, u cant miss that way !

Seriously. Just swap to Shortbow and Cluster Bomb, forget using finisher.

I had the exact same thing happen to me, right down to the time-frame my account was hacked. I was notified fairly quickly by support – which surprised me – who had clearly interpreted my subject line which included “hacked account,” to be a mere matter of the password being changed.

After waiting the 72 hours so I could have the privelege of perhaps getting my ticket addressed properly, only to have to wait more, I would like to emphasize that yours’ is not the only support ticket “resolved” in such a manner.

Patiently waited the 72 hours since submitting my original ticket since having my account hacked, so here goes. Please help.

Ticket #: 121223-002525

Check under the “Services” tab at the top of the page, from there click the “Support” drop-down, and if then select the “Ask a Question” tab (You may want to do a search on the FAQ for “hacked” to clarify what information should be included). Having recently suffered a similar fate, I can empathize all too well, and wish you the best in your attempts to get your account restored.

Bumping due to similar hacking/digital robbery issue. By the time I noticed any damage done, my characters had been transferred to another server and all that could be stolen, salvaged, or otherwise was gone from my account.