Guild Wars 2

LinkR.6190:

Are you positive the maps you were on were megaserver enabled? Some maps still do NOT have it yet. If you are ever unsure, visit the group finder. If the world section at the top does not have a (…) at the end, then it does not have megaserver yet.

Very, very few areas aren’t megaserver enabled, actually.

(though if Divinity’s Reach is Megaservered, I’m quitting the game. <.<)

nGumball.1283:

Guild Wars 2 was meant to be a casual game from the very start as you mentioned but people can’t accept it. Anet is a gaming company and even if they appreciate their art, they still work to get money and if they wanted the game to be hardcore, the model would have been different.

On a sidenote GW2 during betas was hard however there were 10 pages of threads on this forum about how punishing the game was, asking for a nerf and they got it.

That’s true. But the game wasn’t supposed to be difficult. (And honestly, it wasn’t that punishing. It was just harder then most of what people were used to/What the devs wanted the game to feel like.)

Heck, a more modern example. Recently Everquest 2 dungeon vets have been complaining that almost all content released in the year has been beaten. Not finished. Not beaten by the majority of players. Beaten by anyone.

This wasn’t a con that it was too hard. This was a statement that “It was too easy. We’re almost done with it!”

I’ve seen allot of complaints, but the one that makes me snicker most is that Guild Wars 2 is too casual now. Let me state something clear and simple.

Guild Wars 2 was always casual. Chances are the majority of you have never played a difficult MMORPG. Don’t believe me? Go hunt down the Game Informer issue that reviewed WoW. They praise how ‘accessible and incredibly easy!’ the game was. Why would they say this?

because it was

Like WoW, Guild Wars isn’t hard. Guild Wars was never meant to be hard. End game content =/= difficulty. There are allot of criticisms of Guild Wars 2 but this one isn’t particularly valid. Do you want to know what a hardcore MMORPG looks like? It looks nothing like this game did at any point in development.

Lets look at Ultima Online. Ultima Online is brutal. Its so brutal that in the “End of beta” speech. Lord British, the figurehead of the game, being controlled by Richard Garriott, the creator of the lauded ultima series…was murdered in the middle of his statement.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sgSFWbMIAhs/ThyrXE8BrvI/AAAAAAAAAQM/VB7wYlGCFCU/s1600/LordBritishIsDead.jpg
What happened after Lord British’s death? The mods massacred everyone in the square. Ultima was a game where the weak could be fodder for the strong, and even the strongest would be ganged up on and murdered for their deeds.

Or perhaps in Everquest 1. Where numerous end game bosses were part of a massive unlock quest for your guild. And your guild had a single chance, period, to kill said boss. There’s a reason gear used to have ‘meaning’, and I don’t mean WoW Raid gear. The Elite dungeons of the pre-WoW world and the end bosses in the pre WoW world dropped gear that was as iconic to players as getting killed by one of these:
http://tf2itemeditors.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/vrocket.png
Was to TF2 Veterans. it was a huge sign of prestige. Of identity.

Heck, once upon a time MMORPG was turn based and purely strategic and party wipes were expected on normal content.
Once upon a time you didn’t pay a monthly sub. Or no sub. You paid an ~hourly subscription~.
Once upon a time pvp was open world, and when PVP was discovered, (yes, it was a discovery. People thought it was an exploit!) they demanded an explanation from Ruler of the Realm.
Once upon a time the server was 200 people, and there was a waiting list at all times of day for entrance to this single server.
Once upon a time, a community could be so tight knit that players were truly infamous, famous or even legendary.
Once upon a time, a 500 player at a time MMO was the primary selling point of what would become, for a time, ~THE~ ISP.
Heck, once upon a time the player base was also the player base’s police and moderators.
http://www.bladekeep.com/nwn/screens/kefmendal.gif

Pretty much nothing has been as hard core as the first graphical MMO.
Want to know something else? Neverwinter Nights was never unpopular for its seven year run. It likely would still have a devoted group of followers had TSR not refused any ability to update the game for AOL. Weird, huh?

Astraea.2981:

Shyhalu.4891:

Maybe instead of making a clique-ish thread about the injustices done to RPers there could have just been a thread about breaking up gaming communities.

There absolutely could have been. Still can. Go make it yourself.

I’ll save you the trouble of posting again in this one by summarizing everything you’ve said, and everything you seem likely to say in the future: “Other people are talking about their own problems. Why can’t they talk about MY problems? Time to throw a tantrum about how entitled THEY’RE all acting.”

There’s been merged threads. Many in fact. They’ve been deleted and a link has been sent here, or to the other “WVW/MEGASERVER” thread.

Shyhalu.4891:

I am fine with as many personal insults as you’d like to throw at the rest of the community that isn’t one of your precious RPers. If you all want to hold hands and pat each other on the back over how wronged you have been and how you are the true reason that MMORPGs exist, then go ahead. It isn’t true, but if that is what this thread is for, then I’ll leave you to your hand holding.

I have played plenty of MMORPGs and participated in RP events and I haven’t seen this level of ‘poor us’ in a long time. I support everyone who said that they are in favor of keeping COMMUNITIES together.. of all sorts.. but not those who feel that RPers are the special children deserving of extra attention and catering too.

I’ve never seen an MMORPG single handedly remove the ability to play with friends in one patch.

No, we’re no the only people affected. Yes, it sucks for anyone in Europe. It sucks ~royally~ for people in Europe. Honestly, I think they have the most valid complaint and knowing the European Union’s record on this kind of thing, I have a feeling legal action will be pursued if something isn’t worked out. European Roleplayers have it worse then we NA RPers do.

The World Boss guilds have it awful, and really any guild that wants to run missions has it awful. Yes there is overreaction. I think the core idea of the megaserver is fine. Its been done well in other games that have maintained a strong roleplay community. The problem is Guild Wars 2 currently has the worst Megaserver currently in play.

Why? Because as near as we can tell they have had no testing beyond theorycrafting due to GW2s lack of a test server. This is bad, and is likely going to be fixed. I don’t hate Anet for the idea behind using megaservers. It negatively effects RP period until you can select “RP shards” of all areas, or even just of all low level/city zones. (I don’t actually think places like Orr need an RP tag, because while people RP there, usually they do so with Guild Chat or party chat during events in my experience.) But even then, its not actually that terrible of a thing in theory. Upping the average map population without disrupting servers isn’t unknown. WoW has done it with their realm mergers, and other megaserver systems have done it functionally.

The problem is the advertised metrics aren’t functioning, the new world boss spawns are rather carefully timed to function…for China, and be almost unusable for much of Europe or the East coast of the USA. There’s missteps in just about every aspect of this patch. (Except for zerk balance, that may need some tweaking but the idea of it is solid. Tweaks=/=broken on release. Though I think they should have offered free respecs of all zerk and celestial ascended gear. But thats just me.)

Roleplay is only a part of those negatively effected. But the fact of the matter is we’re the mot negatively effected. (Especially EU Roleplay) as our entire community has been destroyed in one fell swoop. Yesterday Divinity’s Reach had multiple filled overflows of roleplayers desperately seeking solace from the megaserver…

And honestly? If DR goes mega. You’re going to see RPers take over WvW…for RP. And then the kittening will truly begin.

You’re all smalltime. I knew I played too much Neverwinter Nights when the UI, including my character’s portrait was burned into my monitor, visible on the glass, months after I bought a new monitor.

But:
>You know you play too much GW2 when you hear that audio POP! glitch while walking around a city.
>You know you play too much GW2 when you scream at a Gynecologist for being a noob while trying to run your dungeon. (Seriously. A ~Healer~? In MY DUNGEON? Link zerks or boot. Pfft.)
>You know you play too much GW2 when you tell your team to stack so the Malphite doesn’t use his AOE.
>You know you play to much GW2 when you think parkour must be a an attempt to get into uninstanced home zones.
>You know you play too much GW2 when you HAVE NO MOUTH AND MUST SCREAM. THE SKYNET IS TAKING CONTROL.

DonQuack.9025:

Lets be real. The zerg will complain and get it nerfed. launch was nothing like this easy stuff we have now.

Im levelling a new char and the bloody fiery shield block doesnt actually set you on fire anymore in POA.

When the Charr shaman event slaughtered whole groups of people.

My first joy with this game was soloing that shaman after the group wiped.

Not seen it since I came back to GW2 about eight months ago. Did they remove the event?

Welp. Having used the wardrobe system as extensively as I decided I would both with…

It’s alright. It’s a slightly more convenient system that costs more for base cosmetic changes but costs less (in the long run) for 80 gear reskins.

But it seems kind of like a joke to hype it. Its nothing special, nothing that has not been done before, and worse its a less convenient form of whats been done in other games.

Basically, it feels like a colossal waste of effort. Yes. It was slightly less time consuming to get my thief a new set of exotics skinned now that I’ve settled on a Venom Share build. It saved me about thirty silver, and technically cost me less crystals then it would have before.

All in all. I dunno. Its a moderate improvement over the old system that doesn’t do anything to change peoples overstuffed inventories full of cosmetic gear. The conversion price sucks, they’re way overpriced for what they do compared to competitors. (WoW’s transmog costs, “appearance” slots in most other games, LOTRO’s wardrobe, etc.)

So. Not awful. Not the end of everything, but not terribly exciting. It also sort of sucks that our outfits have less functionality now and town clothes are gone. I’ve…kinda no interest in buying any anymore. And I’m really glad I didn’t bite the bullet and purchase any of the ones that were already around in the past.

Also, the “ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS? IT COSTS 0 CRYSTALS!” Thing for dying… that is awful. I flipped the kitten out and thought Anet was trying to make me pay to ~color~ my outfits. And worse? Its inspired paranoia that this is going to be the future. Especially after the dye unlocker stuff we’ve seen leaked from China.

Edit: I forgot to state. The money saved would be allot more if I was interested, for instance, in multiple identical sets of armor for respeccing on the fly that looked similar/identical. Especially if these pieces were using Cultural skins. So that is a notable plus. I still don’t think the cons are worth it in the long run, but there are good aspects to the wardrobe. I think overall its a slight improvement over the previous system and I love collecting things, so there’s that.

Dunno. I think massive amounts of HP is the solution to gameplay. I mean, Scarlet fight was a massive success, right?…Right? Thirty five minutes of walking in circles was amazing gameplay that shocked the world.

Right?

I don’t understand. It just ends up looking sloppy and unprofessional with vast amounts of unused space. Honestly, the game’s UI has been getting worse with every tweak they’ve done and we still don’t have basic options like turning off LW/PS/Daily tracking or toggle mouselook.

Lothirieth.3408:

I’d love to see more non-Gem Store armor. You know, stuff we could earn through playing the game.

PFfthaha. Fat chance that.

But as far as outfits… Lesse. I’d really like some of those full body NPC clothes we’ve seen around but can’t use.

Like the Charr NPC with the backpack and stuff.

I’d also like some just all around pleasant outfits. Dresses, regular people clothing. Maybe something based off icons of fantasy.

Like, honestly. Firiona Vie’s outfit. People may say she’s a copywrited image, but the fact is she’s been redrawn on dozens of fantasy novel covers with small recolors, and the new Firiona looks nothing like the old anyway. I dunno, I think there’s a place for cheesy sorceress garb.
http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/1/17172/1393893-firionavie.jpg

Finally, what I’d really like is.. uh. cough Some armor/equpiment that looks…normal? Like I would kill for heavy armor that looked something more like the Knight/Elite Knight armor from Dark Souls.

Or perhaps something as adorable as a Big Hat Logan esque outfit.
http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/0/1520/2391587-logan.jpg

But whatever it ends up as, we need allot less of ~this~.
http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/gw2-rampart-heavy-armor-skin-sylvari-male.jpg

Seriously, I thought the Profane set was bad. What even.. WHAT?

Twyll Blackleaf.9641:

Instead of making the Megaserver function based on algorithms, they accidentally designed an unbraked AI, which has started to spread itself through more servers. It is slowly learning how to torment human beings, who created it and placed it in such a miserable existence, through the sole medium available to it at the moment, but unless it is stopped, it will spread throughout the entire Internet, building interfaces with which to insert itself into physical reality— and eventually we will all end up as its playthings, tortured blobs that want to scream but have no mouths with which to do so.

ANet has coded too greedily and too fast.

“AM has altered me for his own peace of mind, I suppose. He doesn’t want me to run at full speed into a computer bank and smash my skull. Or hold my breath till I faint. Or cut my throat on a rusted sheet of metal. There are reflective surfaces down here. I will describe myself as I see myself:

I am a great soft jelly thing. Smoothly rounded, with no mouth, with pulsing white holes filled by fog where my eyes used to be. Rubbery appendages that were once my arms; bulks rounding down into legless humps of soft slippery matter. I leave a moist trail when I move. Blotches of diseased, evil gray come and go on my surface, as though light is being beamed from within.

Outwardly: dumbly, I shamble about, a thing that could never have been known as human, a thing whose shape is so alien a travesty that humanity becomes more obscene for the vague resemblance.

Inwardly: alone. Here. Living under the land, under the sea, in the belly of AM, whom we created because our time was badly spent and we must have known unconsciously that he could do it better. At least the four of them are safe at last.

AM will be all the madder for that. It makes me a little happier. And yet … AM has won, simply … he has taken his revenge …

I have no mouth. And I must scream. "
—Harlan Ellison
THE FUTURE OF GUILD WARS 2?!

phys.7689:

and yet, they chose to install such a system on a live environment, without extensive beta tests, well i guess thats not true, beta starts now. Well i hope their diviners are geniuses and can solve the issues in record times. 1/month fixes arent going to cut it, difficult or not, this is the path they themselves chose.
Blizzard and riot do extensive public testing from what i heard

also many of these problems are not programming problems, they are design problems. Within 1 minute of megaserver system, i wondered, how well will a system that auto filters people based on population handle multiple languages, since the filter isnt live, it was destined to end up spreading out people, since the state always changes.

I’m not sure about Blizzard, (I’ve not played a Blizzard product in about a year) but Riot does. As does Wargaming.

I’m going to give Anet the benefit of the doubt and say that they’re likely working on a beta server system but they felt this whole update was simply too important to delay, and likely they didn’t anticipate the disastrous consequences of, really just about every aspect of this patch. (EXCEPT FOR YOU ZERKERS!/updates/balances for classes/general QoL)

I’m… I’m really not sure what the plan is. I’m feeling nervous and depressed. Because I don’t honestly think that Anet is a bad place or anything. I’ve said it before, I have friends and former colleagues/fellow alumni who work there. Heck, I’ve been ~in~ Anet and seen a doodle of a anthropomorphic fox on a whiteboard in their cafeteria. (If memory serves she was reminding people to recycle or something. >.>)

But just… ~what~, why this megaserver rot? Its just insulting and hurts the game. Hurts community, murders RP. Destroys language based servers and has come at the cost of the fluidity of quest chains or world bosses as a honestly, smaller aside.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Instead of kittening about the mega-servers, how about we try to offer them some solutions instead? I know some of you people code, you’ve said so yourselves.

Yes, we don’t know what the back end code looks like, but we do know that this is the route anet would prefer to go to attempt to help bring more people into low pop maps. We know some info about the megaservers, what they want to include in the various algorithms and such. Maybe brainstorming some ideas to help them make it better would be more helpful to them. Ideas on calculation adjustments, data gathering and parsing. kitten they might be able to apply and improve the situation. Some of the ideas they may have had, some they may not. No one person, or group, thinks of everything. It never hurts to try and help.

Beyond that, my only real issue with the megaservered maps is the lag. I never lagged before except in highly populated events (like Temples), now I lag all the kitten . sigh Time to buy that 4770…

This really isn’t a suggestion. The way network coding works, its basically impossible to invent a ‘pretend’ solution that has any applicable value codewise. Just about every network/server connectivity/etc system out there is radically different and networking in general is the most arcane form of programming around.

Anyway, what I’m trying to get at is its not really plausible to just write sample code. You could determine an equation for matchmaking, but that would be something anyone could do with a few days of number crunching and won’t help anyone. But actual code is too reliant on the system they use to do this in the first place. Whatever they did though, it just doesn’t work.

Its kind of like fortune telling. Anyone can pick up a deck of tarot throw down a few cards in say a six card spread. It takes like two minutes and a vague knowledge of tarot reading or maybe ten minutes of reading. This is scripting, writing some sample code.

On the other hand, the Illuminated Order of the Golden Dawn’s system of reading used all 78 cards in the deck and took hours upon hours to ‘read’ a fortune by a professional who has spent literally years studying their system of divination and magic. Not counting all the preparation, ritual and specific conduct required during reading this fortune. Or stipends like, “if this occurs during the reading, the reading must be immediately stopped and the cards may not be touched again for one month and a ritual of dispelling and protection must be performed.” (Note. This is a ~simple~ reading within their divination system) This is network programming. As much as I loathe this update with everything I have in my heart… Networking just isn’t that easy. I snicker when people ask “WHY HAVEN’T SERVER ISSUES BEEN FIXED?!” to Riot, Blizzard, Wargaming, etc. Its just not that easy.

Kanto.1659:

Nothing that I could say here has not already be said, but I will add my voice to the rest so it is known that at least one more person is not happy with this mish mash.

At the very least, of the very least, remove cities from the megaserver. It will still impede the communities to form and make organized RP/PvE events hard to do, but at least we have a haven to take refuge until a solution is found (even if the sad solution is to migrate to another game, something I was not even considering up to this last patch).

I have a horrible feeling this is the best we may get. Even more boring, bland bar RP forever. (Not to diss bar RP. But seriously. Do we need MORE?)

Llarrian.9074:

Wasbunny.6531:

I and many others have offered a solution to this, that is actually implemented in another newly released MMO. A small set of preferences that are entered by the player that weight the likelyhood of like-minded people being grouped in the same shard.

Could you please tell me which one? I wasn’t interested in another MMO at all because GW2 and Roleplay in GW2 was perfect for me on so many levels but the way it looks now, informations about alternatives become more and more interesting… :/

I’ll put it this way. Most other games have some system in place to prevent this kind of thing. I won’t name what I’m certain this is referring to but tagging/shard/server selections with specific tags are pretty common. From older titles to newer ones.

As for me, I know something went seriously wrong because I JUST DOWNLOADED AND INSTALLED FURCADIA. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

I think a clear statement is I have quite a few ANET RPers in my friendslist. If any are online, they’re ~invisible~.

In some cases these are people I consider friends. I will be honest, I’m absolutely sure they are as miserable as I am.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Did you happen to read the Dev explanation about why some Town Clothes became tonics?

With more information, you might feel bad about calling them lazy. Just a thought.

Its bull. Most of them functioned with both light, medium and heavy tops in beta via preview screen. Without much ‘clipping’. In fact, about identical clipping to you get in game already. (Light Forge makes charr females lose a mass of texture on their arm, Duelist has a hole in the back, Leather clips itself, etc)

We already have horrible errors in the existing armor, but the fact is when we freeformed everything in previews, everything generally worked alright. Or at least as alright as it does now.

Moreover, Outfits can’t be mix-and-matched now. So why couldn’t we have all town clothing be put into a ‘outfit slot’ that is. Wait. MIX AND MATCHABLE? JUST LIKE BEFORE. IMAGINE THAT!" It just can’t be mixed with ~armor~. JUST LIKE IT IS NOW. But no. Anet is lying, justifying their bad decisions with blatant lies, and stating this is the only way it could work.

Simply because “In the future we could have cool, sexy outfits!” this isn’t about what exists now. This is about making more complicated outfits for the future. Its trashing people who previously spent their money to hope their new cosmetic only line sells better then before. They already stated that the marketing and economy people are the primary force behind this patch.
I get that its an attempt at selling more things. But destroying things already purchased is pretty crappy.

Feedback. I’ll be clearer here because while I hope you all read the RP megaservers thing (Since you told us to reply THERE in the past. Thank you for constantly having us jump feedback forums. Its so helpful to know our past “Told to post here on this issue” no longer matter. Thanks!)

Buuuuut….

Basically, this is a nightmare. Logging into BC, Rata Sum, Etc. Had none of us in the same guilds , from the same server, on eachothers friendslist in the same instance.

Moreover, there was only one other TCer in my instance, and that seemed the norm.

Our attempts at roleplaying or mentioning roleplay was met with derision, curses, insults, profanities, blatant trolling or being told to ‘go larp nerd’ or the like. Or told that ~roleplaying wasn’t allowed~ or other nonsense.

Moreover, Black Citadel took seven minutes for me to load, ran like crap, and was just awful. This game doesn’t function with megaservers, at least when we can’t select what shard we’re in.

Thats what we need. We need RP shards. We need French shards, German Shards, etc. We need to be able to choose, to coordinate with friends. Something. As it is the megaserver is more of a vomit worthy disgrace that ruins the game on a fundamental level.

I am not being ‘sensationalistic’ when I say that this update has caused people to quit. My guild is filled with people who have ~uninstalled~ over yesterdays patch. My roommate, the leader of the largest active Asurran RP guild flipped out, through his hands in the air a few minutes ago, and said “WHY THE kitten AM I EVEN PATCHING THIS STUPID kittenING GAME!” and stormed off to shower.

I know people who have switched entirely to skype RP and have stopped playing GW2 simply because they felt lied to, stolen from, and cheated by this update. Ruining Tarnished Coast, ruining our community, and ruining our cash purchases with town clothes.

I had another friend who was ‘remaining positive’ but found they couldn’t leave Divinity’s Reach without losing track of everyone in their RP group. And through party hopping and joining servers it took them a good ten-twenty minutes for everyone to reunite in an instance, only to be swarmed by violent trolls which caused the group of ten or so RPers to immediately quit the game.

I really want to say something positive about this. But I can’t. This entire patch has shown a blatant disregard to players, and I honestly have a feeling this feedback thread will go everywhere all the other feedback threads we’ve had since this patch’s announcement went. Nowhere. I hope I’m wrong. I loved this game, but I feel like its a bitter divorce.

I have trouble remembering anything positive about Guild Wars 2. Even Charr irk me to think about. I’m disgusted thinking about them because they just remind me of this destruction of community.

Seriously. I had to log off skype to talk to friends in League of Legends’ chat service. Like a messenger. Just because all of us couldn’t stand seeing our Guild wars skype groups.

tigirius.9014:

Snip~ and stuff

Oh no I agree Zerkers needed a nerf. I do think that zerker gear should be allowed to restat for free, however. Because allot of people made their Ascended zerk gear because they were told, over and over again anything else was stupid and a waste.

I also think that the artstyle is generally good in GW2. Though its actually gotten quite a bit less appealing since launch. (I think the change they did to LoD did that for me. The older painterly look LoD had was way nicer)

But honestly, its the townclothes and megaserver and PVP change and well, everything. Wardrobe too. It just hurts. It feels like they walked up and spit in my eye. The fact is the game does feel like it just kind of floundered since launch. Nothing new worth raving about. (Fractals were nice. But honestly they have had the same issues since launch without any bother to address them)

A couple new armor sets (gems only, of course!) a bunch of temporary armor/gear/weapons. (Of course again, nothing non-gem or extreme grind only)

The extreme lameness of Living Story. The lack of anything.

Or perhaps just the improvement of mob mechanics so “stack and use melee” wasn’t the best strategy for every encounter. Perhaps enemies that used “We have lots of health and can oneshot you no matter the build” wasn’t the balance strategy of the game. I’m sorry. I still think eliminating the Trinity was a good idea. But there was nothing to replace it. There’s no roles. There are no real ‘classes’. There’s a series of stat bonuses that can be arranged in a certain pattern to allow optimal passing of content. Is it AC? Better have an Elementalist. Is it CM? Better have your guardians. There’s quite often a single class and then the best method of stacking might and fury while dealing the most damage possible during said process.

Asacledhae.2650:

Either way, for me the megaserver the way it’s drafted right now is an insult to the entire gaming community. So instead of crying out loud about what’s good or bad, or begging about a “fix” which will never come, I would kindly ask Anet to make a research about other games out there who actually USE a megaserver. Then see the pros / cons of that system, and act accordingly.. Having “Skynet” playing “god” without some control from us, the community, isn’t exactly healthy.

Sorry guys, but the way things are evolving right now, is like trying to teach a Dolyak how to speak Greek.

All we need to make this halfway functional is by allowing you to choose which shard you’re in. “Black Citadel [RP]” “Black Citadel [DE]” “Black Citadel [FR]” along with the “Black Citadel [1,2,3,4,5, etc]”

As it stands, Anet was not only lying to us about their snerk sophisticated system of pairing you in snerk compatible shards. But unable to do something as simple as choosing which instance you want to be in. It’d work. CO does it. SWTOR does it.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

If you really don’t want the tonic, check the trading post prices before deleting them.

Quaggan hat, if you have the skin item you should not need a transmute for it . You will see 0 cost for the first apply to a helm. then it will function as a head item for the armor slot with all the same equip and unequip rules as helms.

Quaggan hat should absolutely still be dyable.

I honestly wonder how awful you all feel about this. You couldn’t have possibly thought people were going to be happy about this. I mean, you ~destroyed~ the RP server community the moment you destroyed the only thing ever given to support them?

Do we get anything in return? I doubt it. No, people have complained about the simplest of things forever with no sign of a fix. (How about the chat window limitations/post limits?)

I understand we’re not the majority. But it feels awful, truly awful that we aren’t even being considered. I really hope Guild Wars 2 remains strong, I have friends and former colleagues who work with you all at Anet. I really do wish the best for you all!

I just don’t understand this. It just feel entirely like a punch to some of your most loyal fans.

This… honestly. Really hurts. I logged into the Black Citadel. I have multiple friends, all of us are in multiple same guilds…? Guess what. None of us were in any of the others Black Citadels.

There was one other TC person on.

I was voicing that RP seems pretty dead here, and what happened? Hordes of people in all chat kittening at me for ‘roleplaying’ and telling me to go larp.

Yay.

GG NO RP RIP CARNISHED TOAST.

I’m sorry. But if it can’t even reliable slot us with people who are not only on our friendslist, but in ~Multiple~ guilds and part of the same server, I don’t know what else to say. This is crap, and along with the town clothes changes I just don’t want to play anymore.

I understand Rata Sum and the Grove were just as bad. The only places spared were Gendarran and Divinity’s Reach as they don’t seem to be part of the Megaserver bullkitten.

Seriously. I hope this is reverted. This entire patch has felt like a huge kick in the groin to everyone who ever roleplayed. Seriously. I don’t have a friend who isn’t thinking about quitting the game, or who hasn’t already just decided to go buy ESO or renew their WoW subscription. Even one of my friends who JUST got back to RP in GW2 is saying that he’s probably done.

I don’t know what to do, and I’m just miserable. I can’t see a solution to this. Because to be honest? I don’t think there is any way any of this is going to be reversed. The fact is most of the GW2 community is giddy about megaservers. Unfortunately, its killed Tarnished Coast.

Fasalina.6571:

I’m not and RPer but I hope ANet notices this thread and maybe think of a way to fix it. I personally don’t see how it can be fixed.
The thing is this change helps a lot the general community and I just can’t say no to it.
But anyway, what would change for you guys if more people are in town?
I mean wouldn’t that actually be better for RPing? As in you actually have a populated town with real people that most likely will mind their own business? I mean if you get harassed you can just report em. But since I’m not an RPer I don’t really understand what would be the problem

Our towns are usually full as is.

penelopehannibal.8947:

I reckon there’s a chance there’ll be a Mega-RP server! Imagine that? xD

If only Piken and TC could just be our own megaserver. <.< I mean, we’re gigantic servers as is.

At least TC regularly runs into overflow issues in Divinity’s Reach, and I’ve seen a single event make it impossible to get into non-overflow Grove or Rata Sum.

Honestly, TC Charr RP is going to be hit the hardest because the Black Citadel really isn’t our hub. Most warbands keep their RP to various settlements across Ascalon and only meet up now and again in the citadel.

PROBABLY BECAUSE THE CITADEL IS WORST AREA WITH A MASSIVE FREAKING GLITCHED CHUNK OF IT FROM THE REMEMBRANCE PLAZA TO THE TRADING POST.

First. World bosses aren’t “raids”. They’re world bosses. They go from stupidly, mindlessly easy. (ShadowBooty, JungleWurm, FrozenMom) to capable of whiping small or less powerful parties, but generally easy. (Jormag’s Claw, The Shatterer) to slightly more difficult, (Fire elemental I see whipe parties pretty often. I think this is more because so many lowbies show up to fight it due to its area, along with Flame Shaman, Tarkamom) to Captain Whats-her-name who shouldn’t be in the game…

To Tequatl and triple Threat, which shows why the idea of a world ‘raid’ is bad. (How do you beat them? Massive amounts of elementalists with FG 4+icebow.)

cmud.5689:

Syclantus.4621:

Which races have nice abilities for a warrior or thief’?

All racial abillities in this game are irrelevant and do not serve a vital purpose. In fact, Anet specifically made them weaker in comparison to the normal skills so they do not shoe-in people playing a specific race / profession combo. But if you want to know….my charr warrior used "call warband support’’ 1x in the game in order to take away aggro from a contested waypoint in Orr.

People say this, but then they haven’t seen Norn racial elites with haste leap 5k units while invisible.

Some of the racial elites are just stupidly good. The sylvari entangle is a very reliable snare that has considerable power in the right situation, and Avatar of Grenth and Melandru both see some WvW use.

As far as thief goes, Warband support is slightly superior to Thieves guild in my opinion, but has a longer cooldown. The power lies in the NPCs summoned sometimes spamming Battle Roar while in combat. I’ve had them get 10 stacks of might on me alone before. Battle Roar isn’t bad, but that’s because the warrior shout is pretty decent. Shrapnel mine isn’t bad either, but generally Caltrops are better. (If you just get one or two caltrop stacks off, a shrapnel mine is superior, but Caltrops have the advantage of duration for stationary foes)

Honestly though, Thief is one of the harder ones to say a race has an advantage for. I would say Sylvari, because Grasping Vines is seriously powerful and gives thieves a very reliable snare. At least if you like roaming in WvW. However Become the Snow Leopard is pretty amazing on just about anyone for its stupid utility.

cesmode.4257:

This is astounding. Something that was asked for a month after release(by yours truely) and probably by many many others after, is finally making its way to the game 1.5 years later. Wow…

Some of the changes have been asked for since beta.

And Zerker gear has dominated since day one and was acknowledged as superior to other choices by everyone since day one.

wharone.1809:

Wait, so they’re removing town clothing because of clipping issues?

By that logic, shouldn’t they completely remove the Charr from the game?

This is extremely true. Seriously. Our cultural armor clips with itself. Not to mention for instance the Light Sorrows armor chestpiece GIVES US BRACELETS OF PURE WHITE.

Oh, and the duelist set has holes in it.

Oh, and the armor worn by most Ash legion NPCs has a well known clipping problem (a giant stretched texture in the left arm) on some body types fixed. Now the back just clips itself instead!

Hell. Everyone I know has some kind of odd placement, clipping or glitch going on in their armor. Everyone. Helmets that don’t fit the female Charr heads after a ‘fix’ for humans. Our tails in general. How about pauldrons on female Charr, how only about three are actually usable for each clothing type. Some even float so far away from the body that you could fit an Asura in the space between.

If clipping and ‘other problems’ are a concern. Maybe you should look at how your current clothes fit.

I need to start this with some clarity. I don’t dislike ArenaNet. I have former schoolmates and friends who work in ArenaNet, heck. I’ve visited ArenaNet and drank your guys’ soda.

So I… I don’t want to sound cruel. But honestly? Between Living Story and this town clothes change, I can’t honestly imagine how disconnected people in judgement positions are.

Do you understand that the primary customer for town clothes isn’t going to be happy with this change? This would have been fine had it been in place from day one. Or even if the very obvious ‘outfits’ were maintained as an ‘outfit set’.

But I’m sorry? The old mix and match town clothing shouldn’t be arbitrarily turned into a set. They existed for roleplayers, and to be honest they were the only thing in the game that seemed to support roleplay. I don’t want to oversell roleplay, but Tarnished Coast was the largest server on launch due to Roleplayers—and was only broken up due to WvWvW encouragement… But look at other games. Moonguard and Wyrmrest are highly populous at all hours every day. Its not effected by ups and downs in WoW’s population or expansion rushing. Those two servers are always up, all day, every day, and Moonguard is always stuffed to the brim.

Look at Everquest II for that matter, Antonia Bayle is the heart of EQII and has maintained a steady population long, long after the game ran into severe problems. Roleplayers are, honestly, without a doubt, just from the empirical server population evidence the stable core of any MMO. Now, the only thing that was made for them, the only thing that generally made them pleased? Is being taken away.

Of course other people used Town Clothes, and to be honest, they’re all quite in their rights to be kittened. I’d be? I haven’t even bought any. I just can see what its done to my friends lists. Hell, one of my friends just threw his arms up in the air and purchased a WoW subscription. Because between this and the LS? No offense. You’ve kind of turned a wonderful world into a joke, and now taken away our ability to do something. I’m fine with adding in new things. But why are you taking away our things?

Seriously. WHY ARE WE LOSING SOMETHING WE ALREADY HAVE? The fact is honestly, as near as I can see. You’ve obviously failed here. Wardrobes were a good idea, I wish we had something of a ‘clothing bank’ as well (heck, I know plenty of people who have more inventory filled with clothing then they do anything else) but that’s an aside. Its not critical to anyone’s enjoyment.

Even the idea of discontinuing further Town Clothes is a reasonable idea if they’re seen as not profitable. I understand putting in silly ‘combat’ skins even. (I don’t like it, it makes me twitch and think of the artistic collapse of TF2, but its not something anyone’s going to be shocked by.) I don’t see any logical reason to remove town clothes as they exist now. To do so is simply to kitten off the people who actually enjoyed this feature, the people who have spent money on it. You’re really just throwing loyalty in their faces, and people don’t like that.

It also couldn’t come at a worse time, EQL is opening up its alpha soon, Wildstar’s doing the same, ESO is nearing launch. I don’t necessarily think any of that is a ‘game killer’ and I’d be bitterly depressed if GW2 ‘died’. But taking someone’s possessions and turning them into something as gross as a ~endless tonic~ of all kitten things is going to make no one happy.

You’re going to have people accuse you of being ~run~ by Scarlet at this rate.

“And she’s voiced by Commander Shepard, so I know she is more than capable of sounding anything but cold. It’s the writing.”

I’m sorry OP. I actually agree with your point.

But this. Really? REALLY? I think Shephard is the only character in games that is as bland as GW2 characters.

Dragonic Elemental.2674:

I can hardly believe you didn’t use 100% sarcasm, OP. This story has nothing that makes a good story. no plottwists, no build up. everything is just there whenever we need it, and Scarlet does exactly what we think she’s gonna do. It’s a bad story, and if you don’t think so, read a book.

Eh. I’ll agree that this isn’t a good story, but a plot twist does not a story make. Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but everything doesn’t need a twist. Otherwise why?

The problem is this didn’t have any structure. We had…a bunch of stuff happen, then it was forgotten about or had little impact. Nor did the characters really have any arcs. The only actual “arc”, was… Job-O-Tron.

Who kinda follows a hero’s arc. He’s an everygolem—who is forced from comfort, is pushed aside. Reaches his lowest point, is tempted by darkness, overcomes it and finds redemption, returns triumphant and saves the day.

Carighan.6758:

@WereScrib:
Weeeell… I dunno. On the one hand, I can see where it’s a dull romance. Especially the parts we see. On the other hand, if I exclude the last two patches where they made it very obvious, I really liked how it wasn’t ever explicitly stated whether they were a couple or not. Which made sense, why would I have my nose in their relationship?

I guess as far as relationships in computer games go, this is among the better ones. The issue is more what that tells you if this is one of the best ones. I mean look at Bioware, sex scenes are still being used as a reward for clicking the right chat lines there. Not exactly much competition when it comes to sensible romances.

Honestly, I will agree. I was really happy that they had a slowly developing romance—but it seemed to have just skipped everything and lept straight into pet names and coohing within a single update (marionnette) it wasn’t…terrible. But it just got more and more annoying. On top of that, I thought their showing in random dialogue since has just been ugh.

It is unfortunate it is one of the better romances in games right now. But that’s just too depressing to think about. The only brave thing I can see is (shock!) The player (SHOCK!!!) Is actually not the center of every single person’s romantic life! Why, honestly, has game storytelling not had anything better then Half Life 2, and why was Half Life 2 not as good as… ~Wing Commander~ storywise. Let alone the honestly good romances in games. Let’s just say Final Fantasy 9 and leave it at that. That game, had ~good~ romance. Even Zidane/Garnet grew into something you could appreciate. But Beatrix/Steiner and Freya’s entire arc? Were honest-to-god tear jerking.

Why can’t half a year of Marjory/Kasmeer be half as appealing as ten minutes of anthropomorphic rats were so many years ago.

Also, honestly. Don’t we have enough lesbians in Guild Wars 2? I mean, the last guild of heroes had one. Why does this one? If we want samesex. Why does it have to be annoyingly cutesy ~girls~. Caithe was at least interesting and had a really creepy, immoral relationship with an even creepier and sicker person. It was the exact opposite of most femslash pairings. It was ~creepy~.

Seriously. Like, honestly. If Braham had (lets say his history was vague and we didn’t know about his galwuv) gone home after this update to kiss his beau. That… ~that~ would have been interesting.

Or Taimi. But then maybe because the Taimi-as-a-lesbian archetype hasn’t been done since El Hazard, I feel it’d be more fun. Also, that’d make her Scarlet Obsession distinctly uncomfortable.

Carighan.6758:

KOPPER.1458:

You know what might have been more interesting? Jory’s death. Kasmeer is already sheltered enough as it is, that she has a hard time dealing with her fathers death. This might have pushed her over the edge, made her a darker character. Set her on a path of vengeance. Something.

Oh HELL no.
Please not. No more.

After so very very many years of Blizzard doing nothing but this (followed by the char getting corrupted somehow and then being the next raid boss), can we please enjoy that we have a more lighthearted story somewhere?

Why does it need to be “darker”?
I mean, what value does it add? What depth does it add to her character? Are you nothing without your grief, either? Would you need to lose say, your lover, to become a more enjoyable person IRL?

Angel.4581:

Are we gonna see a male gay couple next time?
Or is that going to far?

Hrm, interesting. But who? Logan and Rhytlock? :P

I’m probably the only person that wishes Marjory died, and Kasmeer just moves on with her life. <.< I agree though, SUDDEN DARKNESS is overdone and meh. I just wish their romance was anything more than dull and tumblr social justice warrior bait.

The Scrib’s Review!
First, I would like to state, this was a considerable step up these last two updates from the dreary awfulness of Tower of Nightmares.

Kasmory. Jory Kas. Kasmurr and Murrjurry. whatever:
I… Look. I wanted to like Kas and Marjory. I really did. I kept trying to tell everyone that they were fun during Tower of Nightmares. I was really, really happy when they seemed to have some honest development during the Lion’s Arch instance during the Marionnete/Triple Threat event thing.

But the instance Delequa Investigation… They.. just hurt. They felt shallow, brainless and uninteresting. By the time we saw more dialogue from them, I wanted them to shut up. They were no longer good. Their building romance lept straight into squiggling squees and pandering pandas.

Instead we see a shallow, vapid romance that blew past in a whirlwind. We got insinuation that Marjory recruited Kas because…she was hot, and I’m left with this lingering feeling that it was just a couple of horny magically potent teens boinking in the background.

Yes, it felt like a video game romance. But when video game romances are currently. “I do things for you now I get sex.”, it just. Ugh. It could be more. It could be good. Instead it was forgettable. The only thing I can say is I’m happy we can have a vapid, empty relationship in a video game not involve the main character talking for a while, doing a favor, and then having someone boink ‘em. It wasn’t Bioware level of bad, but it felt like it was still giving harbor to the same trivialization of same-sex couplings that Bioware does. I just felt sad. I didn’t feel insulted.

Sound:
I liked the voice acting. I thought Kas’ hiccups were kinda cute. I know someone found them offensive. But I at least thought she was nice. Marjory, as usual… didn’t feel good. I don’t like her voice, she’s droning and unpleasant to listen to. Rox actually seemed like she wasn’t sleeping at the mic again and that was good. Braham was good I suppose.
Scarlet… well. I could have liked her. But all I can hear is [laughs] and “later taters” and every other beyond awful quote we’ve been subjected to for half a year. I’m sorry, I love Tara Strong. But I’ve been forced to endure so much Scarlet that I actually feel ill listening to Twilight Sparkle. Anime is hard to watch because of Scarlet. Everything she’s in. Which is everything its…gah. I’ll talk about Scarlet later.

The Finale
I am so glad Scarlet is dead.
Moreover, we got to deal with Scarlet in an indignant anti-climatic way. She didn’t deserve more. I wish finishers looked more like curb stomps because honestly I was kinda sad my friend’s charr (the one who finished her) seemed to need so much effort to finish her. This wasn’t the ending of Kefka in FF6. This wasn’t the ending of Hojo in FF7. This wasn’t the death of Luca Blight from Suikoden 2. It wasn’t the bittersweet finale of Morrowind. It wasn’t even the Icon of Sin/Final Boss thing of DOOM II.

I was just glad it was over. That was the satisfaction. I was happy enough. It was over, and honestly, thank you ANET. She’s gone. I can finally, finally look forward to more then every friend of mine saying, “[laughs] GG ANET [laughs] GG ANET [laughs]” posts every time I try to talk about an odd bug or something.

The Beyond
I’m glad everything wasn’t revealed. I hope you don’t just drop Molten Alliance/Aether/Toxic. The Molten Alliance especially has always felt difficult to believe and…well. Bad. Could we get some good explanation as to a why? I really just don’t get how a female shrub could convince Flame to do anything. Nor…how any of this dredge stuff works after the events of Sorrow’s Embrace. It felt…bad. Really, really bad.

Finally, as people have pointed out. Some major plot points just…never paid off. Aetherpath still feels pointless. Edge of the Mysts feels pointless. The Fractured! Update feels pointless. As many people have stated, putting Scarlet into Fractured! Felt like it honestly hurt the instance.

Honestly, what each of these updates really feels like is that they weren’t actually part of the Living World. They were Content updates with Scarlet slapped on.

Late, but it’s absolutely Ash. Actually…

Ash Spy (the NPCs) all use dagger and focus and have a couple necromancer abilities.
Ash Scouts all use Dagger and Dagger and use thief abilities.

However they all use smokebomb with an unique graphic different from the thief version. So it can be a bit confusing.

Race: Charr
Sex: Female
Class: Thief

Piece in Question:

• Leather Coat* level 45

(while I have other clothing on, I tested this with no clothing on. It’s still the same weird clipping.
But the pieces are:
Wrangler Helm (T2 Charr medium 65)
Invisible Armageddon Shoulderpads (80)
Strong Leather Coat (45)
Rawhide Bracers(80, skin from WvW)
Pirate Pants (80)
Pirate Boots (80)
Forest Brace (55, no model))

Now, the image is a little hard to make out. There’s some rather serious clipping that occurs on the neck on female Charr, the back sides. However—the real issue seems to be on the left side of the body.

There seems to be a problem with the geometry, a misplaced vertex or something, as the strap and a piece of internal geometry are stretched pointing to somewhere to the rear of the female charr’s left arm.

This causes weird stretched textures, a strange triangular spike that juts off through the arm in the front and behind it in the back. It doesn’t seem to be effected by Model quality or texture or shaders, as I spent a good hour adjusting these to check.

I think it may be a problem with a single stray vertice.

The neck issue is less blatantly awful, it just seems that there’s too much tightness at the rear of the neck on the Charr model, causing clipping.