Guild Wars 2

It seems the light and heavy T2 THA armor requires 40 days of gated crafting materials, when medium only seems to require 20 days of gated mats. (am I missing something?)

T2 light THA requires 20 Grandmaster Tailors Marks.

Each mark requires (2) Vabian Silks. > Each Vabian Silk requires: (1) “Spool of Silk Weaving Thread” each. > Only one per day can be crafted. Which gates this armor at 40 days of gated crafting, at one silk weaving thread per day, to make the required 20 Grandmaster Marks. Same with mithrilium in heavy armor.

Medium armors appear to only need (1) item of each time gated crafting material for their respective Grandmaster Marks. So, it appears that it only takes 20 days to craft daily gated materials for medium, and 40 days time gated for light and heavy armor.

Correct?

Even (possibly) to balance cost of leather, taking 40 days of gated mats, to obtain light and heavy T2 armor, and only 20 days for the medium seems to greatly outweigh any gold costs. Having enough claim tickets and mats for a full set, only to find out you need 40 days of crafting silk weaving thread, or mithrilium is discouraging, when it doesn’t appear to be time gated equally across the board.

There is a lot of missing information when spending an hour in a Beta map… however, I may seriously never know after playing this uninspiring Beta. I felt I was done with the map after 1 hour, and felt no desire to go back into it, for any reason, what so ever. Still don’t.

TBPH, from what I saw, It felt more like an old forgotten unpublished GW1 expansion that was dug up and digitally remastered. (Palawa Joko with new and improved sand worms to ride?) From the landscape, to a purely nostalgic, and, apparently totally non-functional, transporter pad memory game, …to the very unwanted “item identification kits”, it felt more like I was visiting GW1.1, than playing a GW2 Beta. It actually left me feeling completely uninspired to purchase it. And, I am worried that flooding the content that is introduced in there into the old maps, might seriously ruin those.

Mounts, to me, are like riding an ostrich. And, I want nothing to do with riding an ostrich around in the game. But, since they are faster, and can jump farther, we are all doomed to HAVE to use them now for speed and efficiency if nothing else. It effectively breaks the game for anyone who liked the game mechanics the way it was. And, doesn’t want to bounce around riding on an ostrich on ALL the maps, all the time. (Me for example, it honestly makes me want to quit the game entirely after all these years, and move on.)

Rebuilding and re-armoring all characters (yet again) for new elite trait lines still leaves me flat. And, since they will almost certainly obsolete all other builds, it will be necessary to have them to continue the game and remain even remotely competitive.

Because these things are becoming essentially mandatory items, I feel they may ultimately “dead end” the game for a lot of people.

I have to wonder, why didn’t they do something completely original, and completely GW2 relevant? Like (instead of mounts) building and driving your own Golem, with the help of your Asuran friends? Which is already part of GW2. Instead of changing the whole game to involve riding ostrich mounts that have never existed in this game, and make no sense to it, and may very well change (ruin?) all of the rest of the previous game play because of it.

I could have played many hours this weekend. But, I was completely done after an hour, and had absolutely no desire to return to the Beta map for any reason. The recent story expansion maps have been far better, and those didn’t completely upend the whole game, and we’ve had much more to do in them.

I’m in disbelief. I was very glad this mechanic from GW1 was gone in GW2. My bigger concern is that they might drag this into the whole game. Just as they are dragging mounts into the whole game, instead of just leaving it all in those maps. Clearly it’s not for better game play, …on the contrary. As stated by others, it is to create increased gem store revenue, with items, such as, “endless identification kits”. Nope. Sadly, playing the Beta for an hour, or so, seems to have eroded almost all interest in it for me anyway. And, I had not even discovered this vintage ID salvage kit issue, until I heard about it from others.

Resurrecting the “painfully arduous item ID kits”. …Pay, or, risk salvaging a precursor? Yuk. ..Not exactly an example of an enjoyable game enhancement that inspires me to get out my wallet, IMHO. This is way past an ordinary; “No”. This is into very colorful superlatives “No” territory.

Devs, and supporters should probably play AION first, and figure out why we play this game, and, not that one. …Getting pummeled by rangers shooting you from the air… Enemies dropping in on you like evil monkeys in the Wizard of Oz. (At 12 FPS) … What’s next? Rifting?

…So, only the side that owns it can glide there? So, they can defend by dropping in on you, out of thin air, while the attacking force is now ground fodder? And portals are still not vertically limited, so they can port back up and drop again?

Agree with others here. Sounds completely broken already. We’ll know soon enough.

Is this just another effort to try to finally attract players to the Deserted Boredomlands? Or, just to please the few that actually like DB? Doesn’t seem very fun, nor useful, in the other BL’s anyway. Why not just finally make DB a different game mode entirely, and put Alpine back to all 3 maps? Then they can glide away in DB as a different game mode entirely.

Very skeptical. As history tends to repeat itself.

..It just seems they are always doing everything they say they never will. And not doing things they always say they will. The history is all still out there to be re-read. “We will never have mounts, especially not flying ones.” “We will never have raids.”…etc. Now it’s all about raids, and mounts, and more unneeded elite specs and weapons. And, it’s surely so complicated by now, that most new comers must be completely overwhelmed, and completely baffled by the complexity. Not to mention for experienced players.

Every new story line, and every new expansion, they try to completely reinvent the game, not, expand on it. Zero continuity IMHO. (one small simple example) What happened to Aurene? Our precious new dragon that really drew us in, to help raise and cherish? Poof, scratch that, never mind, new game, new weapons, new skills, new story line, new gold sinks, start over. …We’ll do a small cameo appearance for her 7 years from now?? Pay fetch with her, become her caregiver, then never see her again? Uninspiring follow up. (Unless such content is in there, which… I’m highly skeptical)

Getting all new elite specialties and weapons is not appealing to me at all. Quite the opposite. It means we all MUST relearn all professions yet again, as though it is yet another completely new game. And, the previous “new” elite specs, will surely be rendered obsolete. Every single new story line, has been including new and different skills, to be learned anew every time. With zero continuity to game play, and objectives. New unbalanced elite specialties, and new weapons, are sure to make for awkward and muddled game play for almost all players of all types. …Until all the gross imbalances of the new specs are finally found, and exploited, and built around, (of course never fixed). Then, if history repeats itself, THAT one build, and THAT weapon set, will surely become; the one grossly imbalanced favorable build we will all HAVE to use to win fights. Like it or not. Balancing the existing specializations would have been far more meaningful and attractive in the expansion IMO.

TBH, I gave up on relearning most of the HoT professions, which I knew how to use pre-HoT. And, I never have used most characters since then, because of it. And… Why bother? They are surely going to upend it again, once you finally re-learn how to play it, and enjoy it. (And sure enough, it seems, here we go again.) I really don’t want to re-spec and re-learn the whole game again. And, I don’t have time or desire to reinvest in doing that at all. It seems to me that the new elite specs and weapons are designed SOLELY to be a carefully crafted gold sink, rather than anything needed for expanding and improving the game play. Forcing players to re-build, re-armor, and re-weaponize yet again. I don’t think I have it in me. It was fun, and, could have been just improved on. Now it’s just purely annoying to have to start over, …again.

Oddly, as I’ve never even re-spec’d for all the last new elites, this expansion may actually be more of a game ender for me, than a fresh beginning. I would have much rather seen a real re-balance of the current elite specs, than to erase everything and start over yet again.

Mounts. Whatever. Honestly, it sounds like useless, directionless, frustrating, gated material created only to attract and appease a few WoW players. …Not, created because it’s content that actually fits GW2.

On the whole, it really seems (to me anyway) that any really meaningful and hopeful expansion material, such as; the ability for “EVERYONE” to earn Legendary armor. Items that give everyone worthy goals to play for, are potential expansion items that are still completely lost to a few hardcore raiders. Possibly dashed hopes that were traded for mounts that we don’t need, hidden behind gated material, that forces you to play scripted areas. Rather than, expanding the game with useful content items, and contiguous story lines, that we really would want to play for.

We’ll see. Myself, due to recent history and direction since HoT, I’m holding back my money this time around, with skepticism, until I see some genuine positive player feedback from it. And, see something more than just needless mounts, and obligations to drain the bank and completely re-learn, and re-gear all characters, to play for.

I’m 3K already… But, I can’t even get in to play, because of all queued maps. So I can’t earn it anyway! Brilliant!

Re-select able stat armor (Legendary) is the only armor that would be worth doing all this for anyway IMHO. All this for ordinary ascended armor? It should be all about legendary armor, not ascended. And it should be available to obtain through ALL game modes, that way, WVW wouldn’t be FLOODED with PVEers in queue making the mode unplayable for the real players. Duh. And these set levels would be reasonable, and understandable, to all the real players of the mode anyway.

I’d be happy if I could just play the game. Regulars are going to have to quit, or, play PVE. Or, type on the forums while waiting in queue, and, searching the internet for new games to play…. Sweet!

If your WVW rank 2000+ you’ve already earned the back pack IMHO, they should just give it to them…lol. And, then let them focus on the only desirable armor possible at that point. Legendary. With re-select able stats. But only raiders get that privilege.

Rank requirements are of no concern if you cant get on a map to play the game anymore.

Simple: Permanent provisioner. If you have full masteries and 30,000 badges ( like many of us), you could open the permanent provisioner, and buy one for 500 badges as always. If not, you still have 2 ways to obtain it. The permanent provisioner is supposed to be a badge sink anyway. So, put it there. Done deal.

Having to re-earn something you’ve already earned 60 (many) times over is just wrong. I bought three spares, when I realize now that I should’ve bought 10. It’s stupid. You keep taking away things we’ve already earned and it’s disgusting. (I.e. Guild stuff)

I agree with OP 100%.

To navigate through the new jungle you’ll have to earn mastery points so you can progress through the jungle and succeed in the game. That is how they announced it.

They didn’t say you would have to earn masteries for GW2 by playing an irrelevant Diddy Kong racing games, and being good at it. The skills are all different, and the games have nothing to do with the GW2 you are trying to play.

The games are fine and I have nothing against them. Except you should be playing for fun, or for unique minis, or something that’s not pertinent to progressing in the main game whatsoever. They couldn’t think of anything fun in game to progress through the game while playing the main game?

I just finally got all my masteries but the last eight points I cursed the game, cursed anet, and hated everything about it. Because I wasn’t doing it for fun, I had to do it, and I had to compete at it, and I had to win at a completely different game just to progress through the game I was wanting to play.

It’s lame. Agreed OP.

Personally, I think that Alpine is going to be a shockingly huge disappointment. I would come back and play them in original form, but probably not with the HoT updates added to them.

But, once they add airships, and banners, and tactivators, and automatic way points, and shenanigans, and all the scribe and guild hall garbage, which only the big guilds can control, ABL is not even going to be recognizable to the original WvW vets anymore anyway. Which IMO is what really killed it for so many of us in the first place. Even more so than the DBL maps, as bad as they are. The DBL maps might not even be that bad, if you took away all the HoT aspects of them, and make them pre-HoT style maps. And put back the “guild earnings for playing the game” back into it.

The truth is: EOTM is now the only map unaffected by the scribe and GH stuff, which is becoming so much more of a real fighting map in recent months, because it’s closest to being just as it was in the days of pre HoT ABL (which is what is really desired in this thread). I’ve actually started playing this game mode again, because of this fact. The EOTM matches are simply too short, as is. EOTM is not just a waiting for a Queued EB map anymore, it’s becoming “much more” (not entirely yet) of an original Pre-HoT GW2 WvW game mode, than it is a waiting map, or a Karma map now. IMO, I don’t even care about the ABL at this point.To me, It’s moot. Because with HoT updates added to ABL, I think it will be trash too. It won’t be anything like it was, and it’s still not going to bring people back IMHO. (We will see, won’t we?)

To me the solution is simply to leave EOTM unchanged Pre-HoT (FOREVER, no HoT upgrades, or it will be ruined too) Just make EOTM a week long match, with (possibly) a couple of added build-able way points eventually, and I think EOTM would be full constantly. And EB Queues would disappear, and the old veterans would come back, and play for fights, and PPT, in EOTM. IF it was just a week long match. Heck, as a bonus, give us “Old School guild earnings in EOTM only”, and watch the small guilds, and pre HoT vets come back and play the map to earn “EOTM only guild stuff”, the old way!

Then you can do whatever you want in ABL, whenever you want. Just give us 7 days to battle it out in EOTM “Old School” style, and I’ll (I suspect A LOT of us) will never care about what happens to DBL, or ABL, ever again, and we’ll have a place we want to really play the WvW game mode again.

1. Change NOTHING in EOTM, except make EOTM a 7 day match as a trial, for a week or two. That should take NO EFFORT as programmers, with NO RISKS. 2. Mix up the servers to balance the power in EOTM from week to week (Instead of aligning the super powers as it is now).

And, see what happens to EB queues, and watch what happens to player base. I bet EB queues drop to near none, and a lot former die-hard vets come back to play a “just as it used to be”, “week long”, EOTM battle map. And the pressure to reinsert the ABL maps will ebb…

Prove me wrong. Please. 7 day matches. Mix up the servers. Sign me up.

And the ABL discussion just might become moot. And many of us may have something we really want to play again!

I had a traumatic experience in the game Outside today.

Happily, I had learned here on the forums, that there is indeed an upgrade option available for my wardrobe birthday suit. After confirming that my wardrobe’s birthday suit was, in fact, due for an update. I decided to act upon it immediately, and purchase the available upgrade as others had.

I logged into Outside, and used the available in game search for “The Jim” content that I read about here. I was referred to a book called “The White Pages”, where I was able to find some more information on the content called “The Jim”.

I carefully plotted the information onto my mini-map, and used my new in game mount to make my way to “The Jim” content, carefully avoiding aggro’ of angry MOBs and their pets along the way.

When I arrived there, I knew I was in the right place, as the PC that greeted me had an important looking tag, that said; “Jim” on it.

I immediately showed the PC my somewhat defective birthday suit, and I offered the character a substantial amount of gold for an immediate upgrade to my birthday suit, and inquired about the possibility of adding boons and buffing my outfit.

The PC immediately produced powerful weapons, and pummeled me into a downed state. Apparently wardrobe items have no armor qualities, and you cannot carry weapons with them while in use. ( I suspected that he was a dev at this point, as I was not even aware the weapons he produced were ones that even existed in the Outside game,). At this point, I was immediately able to confirm that there are in fact too many stacks of bleeding available in the game Outside, and this truly needs to be nerfed.

I quickly selected my downed state skills; “Plea-bargain” and “Claim Ignorance”, to buy myself some time, and get the situation under control. I hastily explained to him that I had recently read on the forums that I could purchase upgrades to my wardrobe birthday suit from “The Jim” using gold.

To that, he called me a “Stupid NOOB”, he threatened me with perma-death, and promised account deletion, if I didn’t leave his map immediately! (This confirmed to me that he must be a dev.) Then he said, that "The GYM’ was an instanced content, only available in my personal story line. And, that the wardrobe birthday suit options should not be used in open world content.

He then explained to me, that the only way to get to “The GYM” content was to press Alt + F4, and unplug my in game computer. He also gave me the in game code "ID10T, to use freely, and he unexpectedly left me to recover using my remaining downed skills; “Broken pride” and “Humility”.

So, I’ve spent the rest of my day pressing Alt + F4, and unplugging my in game computer repeatedly, only to find out “The GYM” content in Outside is bugged! Or, my F4 key is broken. (Still troubleshooting).

The ID10T code he gave me, seems to have no powers. It even seems to cause me to get dropped from the party whenever I enter it.

So, I have decided that I am not playing the game Outside anymore, until I understand the content better. I have also learned that I should read all forum content more carefully, as the instructions and warnings therein, are usually pretty accurate. And, spelling inaccuracies are not always inaccurate.

I find that the devs need to completely revamp the entire crafting system in Outside, as it has rendered the game almost unplayable. The TP has adopted completely unreasonable sellers fees, and final value fees. Big guilds such as [IRS] and [GOV] have completely taken control of the TP, and have made crafting professions utterly impossible to earn anything useful in the game with. Other big guilds such as [CHI] are continuously crafting products, using low level mats, and undercutting my guild’s pricing on the TP as well. They say the high TP fees are to ensure that all the AFK players in towns will continue to get their drops uninterrupted. Devs, please fix this.

The fact that you only get one char per account in Outside just makes it that much worse. Although, you can have unlimited crafting professions, it doesn’t really help, because of the rapid day/night cycle they’ve built into the game, and the mandatory character sleep timer they’ve incorporated! Who’s bright idea was that?

The graphics are buggy as kitten as well. The brightness of the monitor is only half the problem. Snowy screens, and prism like color distortions, as though the light was passing through water droplets, continually plague my system, and my GPU can’t even begin to process all the data variables. Today I tried a new motorcycle mount I purchased in the game, (after taking another beating at the TP,) and the monitor was again plagued with green, brown, and white patches, and empty blank spots (kids are calling them “pot-holes”, all I know is that my system can’t render them effectively). Directional control of my character was spotty, and the whole feel of the game just left me cold. I will say, that audio was improved in the last patch, I’ll give them that.

So , I’m taking a break from Outside again, until the next major patch. And, I’m really hoping they get some things set right because it’s not a bad game overall. It’s just the stupid stuff in it sucks.

I couldn’t agree more. It’s happened to me 3 times this weekend so far. Want to play, but can’t.

I am so tired of being on an organized map, ready to go, beverage in hand, with time to play, and, merging parties into a squad of 40 people. Only to be kicked from the map when the map resets, and it kills everyone, and you need to way point. And then you, and all of the original merged party members, now in the squad, are all kicked from the map. And, none of you can get back in. It is truly a rotten, no good, crappy experience.

The only option is to hope for a secondary map to frantically organize, which rarely happens, and becomes stressful, an outright maddening experience. "I WAS THERE! I WAS IN THE KITTEN KITTEN KITTEN MAP! I WAS IN THE KITTEN SQUAD!….. " Yeah, we all know how it has been going down. For many months, everyone knows. Our poor dogs, and cats, and wives, and children, and neighbors have to listen to it… lol. We all know. It has probably sold a lot of keyboards.

At that point, our original party is usually done playing. Because the event has to be played “at that time”. You’re not waiting 2 more hours, knowing it will just probably happen to you again. Your available game time is often over by then anyway. And other events you might want to do are not happening either. TD isn’t for another hour, and rarely ever organizes. AB is the same kind of mess, and isn’t for another hour and 15 minutes. WvW is totally ruined, and is no longer an option. Etc… We wanted to play that map. Period. And now we can’t!

If you are on the organized map, it should not kill everyone to reset, and force you to way point. Nor, boot you from the map in any way, shape, or form. If you’re on the organized map, you should be able to stay on the map. Period. But instead, people are inviting outside party members. And squad members are leaving the maps, allowing the map to be over full. At the same time, taxiing is happening, with people that can’t get onto the map, and spamming the map, at reset. Which lets people who are not on the map to get on, and causes others to get kicked. It’s pure 100% garbage. You don’t even know what instance you are in, (Districts topic). It shows yet again, people WANT to play, but they CAN’T. It’s a complete failure of implementation. (Doesn’t anyone at Anet get that? Or, know what that means to maintaining loyal playing and paying customers?)

Because of this same type of implementation, I find that there are so few things that are enjoyable anymore in the game, and this totally ruins the events that would otherwise be truly enjoyable. The event(s) itself is great fun. The rest of the experience across the board, since HoT, is primarily just a series of; hoping in vain, frustration, anger, and logging off, and cursing the entirety of it’s design and implementation. And, lack of fixes. We want to play, but, so often we simply can’t. Which is pure garbage.

Every topic like this, only brings to mind the “The laughing man”, (Juan Joya Borja), in the “Shocking interview with Anet developers” meme, on you tube anymore. I really do wonder if he might actually be running the show at this point.

My career depends on my ability to correctly diagnose, correctly fix, and upgrade things to prevent future failures, in a timely fashion. Which makes it even more frustrating for me to play, when this kind of stuff never ever gets fixed. It is apparent that they desperately need an A-team that is dedicated solely to fixing stuff. A team that has the unhindered authority to dig in, and get it done, and make it happen. The problem gets written up. Someone gets assigned to fix it. The work order doesn’t get closed until it’s fixed. Done, solved. Next problem.

Whatever the reasons, I highly suspect that until something changes, the massive list of things, like this, and things like the final story line, which unbelievably hasn’t been fixed yet. The “Oh well, gee whiz”, “Not my problem.”, “What should we do?”, direction will probably reign supreme on this topic as well. It’s surely a complicated system, with complicated problems. But, someone there knows exactly how to fix this stuff. I’d say, get out of their way, clear their desk, and LET THEM fix it! Until then… Well, I’d log on now, but, nah… too stressful, I’ll probably just get kicked from the organized map again anyway. Please, by all means, I’d love to be proven wrong. Fix it.

1. Donation of the Deserted Boredom Land maps to a PvE zone.
2. Pre HoT guild rewards.
3. Something to spend 1500 useless surplus ability points on, that is fun and useful.
4. Build your own way points and upgrades, remove gimmicks.
5 A really good reason to start playing WvW again.

Woosh… right into the circular file. (That’s the trash bin, for those too young to know where crumpled up paper used to be filed.)

Or, more interestingly:

1. Hearing aids to replace the ear plugs.
2. Reading glasses to replace the beer goggles.
3. Pragmatic observation to replace meta-physical dogma.
4. Unlimited severed golden guild kites for any who would deserve it.
5. Sharpened pencils to replace worn out and broken coloring Crayons.

XD

I’m guessing that, if we envision every single thing that we think would be totally awesome. And we wish really hard for it. Then there’s probably going to be some disappointment.

There is simply nothing about these changes that will bring back any WvW players that left WvW, due to HoT changes. They might have been interesting changes a year ago. Positive changes?…Maybe, maybe not. But, It’s akin to debating the extra point in football. Making the extra point automatic, might change the game slightly, but it’s not going to make people want to suddenly play the game again, after someone already turned the game into “arena touch football played in an amusement park with water balloons”.

IMHO, It’s absolutely nothing that is going to get players to suddenly start wanting to venture into the Deserted Boarder Lands. Nor, is it going to get the small guild players back, upset about losing their perks they had earned. Nor, will it bring back havoc squads. Nor…

If you want to know for sure. Simply put everything back to pre-HoT status for 2 weeks. Including former small guild influence, and benefits that were earned, and cheap to build guild catas, etc… Add these updates to that recipe, for 2 weeks, and the maps would be flooded, if not queued with former players, (that is, if they are even aware the changes were made, at this point).

The deserted boarder lands simply have to go, and be completely redesigned (in the background, offline), before anything meaningful can happen. Waiting until 2017 to admit that WvW has been killed off, and offering up penny ante changes in the mean time, to avoid admitting a mistake was made, is probably not a good idea. (Though we are glad, “something” is happening, it’s not nearly what is needed.)

Stand back and observe the view from the balcony: Without a strong WvW arena, opposing guilds have no reason to fight. Which, subsequently, invalidates guild halls. The few opposing guilds left, then hang out in halls, and get bored, and become friends, and maybe even merge guilds. And then they have to devise their own grassroots guild hall tournaments just to amuse themselves. Without a strong WvW, and former multitudes of guilds, both large and small, guild grudge matches wouldn’t even exist.

Therefore, strong PPK is an item that will likely further destroy WvW in a few ways. It will influence it to further become purely GvG, or large scale PvP. You are no longer playing for control of a map, and holding land. It can eventually become purely PPK for the win, and nothing else, and the game, as designed, is then truly dead. Face it, the fight guilds don’t want to take, or defend, a tower as it is. They are rapidly influencing the game into being a different game altogether. WvW is fundamentally about who owns the land (winning the war, PPT). GvG is about the last man standing (winning the battle, PPK). PPK is only about the last man standing (GvG). Is that the direction you want to further push WvW? A delicate balancing act, for sure, to combine the two, because we all really like our fights. A PPK change will inevitably push WvW closer to being purely a GvG tournament, and farther from WvW land ownership and PPT. When players only care about the PPK, then, why have towers at all? Just K-train the towers when they are not looking, and GvG the rest of the time. Siege is unwanted and unsportsmanlike altogether. …Isn’t that about where we are already at?

Tying guild halls directly to the ability to do all important things in WvW needs to be undone. A place to fight a GvG grudge match is fine. Enabling the few largest guild halls to control all WvW buffs, defenses, and upgrades, and direction, is not fine. (Thank you sir, may I please have permission to pull the lever?)

Concurrently, exclusively interviewing only these select guild commanders for these suggested changes needs to stop. It’s like asking the politicians what they want to do to take complete control of the world. The people are supposed to tell the representatives what they want them to do. Same goes here. Players should be the ultimate voice. Not, the hand selected leaders. That is, if you want true WvW, as designed, to survive. Or, do you just want big guild tournaments for guilds, that will ultimately have no reason to be enemies, without a WvW (land) to fight over, and hold claim to?

Rallying 1 for 1? No rezzing in combat? Could be added to the GvG combat rules and regulations for conclusive fights. Their affect on WvW land ownership? Probably nil. Affect on WvW popularity? Also, probably nil.

The need to feel the importance of fighting on all fronts, to keep that tower, with a way point, that was hard earned, that players built, and we care about, that we really don’t want to lose, is paramount. If a lot of people need staking in the process, that’s great! But the PPT needs to remain far more important than any PPK, and PPT needs to remain fun for all players, in order for WvW to survive IMO. PPK is clearly paramount for keeping score in GvG. …WvW? Not so sure its a good idea.

Too little, too slow, probably wrong direction, avoiding the real issues.

Interesting.

I guess anyone seeing this here on the forums, who gets one, would have to be considered active, as inactive or uninterested players are certainly not going be browsing the forums.

An open survey link, to all that would be willing to take the survey, would clearly seem to be the best way to get the best input from current players. As only current players would see it, and only the most avid players would actually partake in it. So, perhaps you are correct, and less active players may indeed be the target.

…Undeniably, any current survey that is randomly spit-balling for possible future changes, also solicits the rhetoric… What happened to the here and now issues? That would still seem to be the logical priority… Ima still let this one unfold here. ..

My guildie, and personal friend, received an “Anet GW2 Survey” on Dec 11th, and, he asked me about it.

He probably hasn’t logged on more than twice in the last year. He does not own HoT. He has only one character with 50% map completion. And, he is raising kids, has completely lost interest in the game, and it is likely that he is completely done with the game. Yet, Anet wants to know; “what he can suggest to improve the game”.

Yet, myself, and another guildie, who have every profession, all level 80’s, legendaries, multiple map completions, and have thousands of hours of game play, are trying to be heard. We can offer legitimate feedback. And, we have not been given the opportunity to take any such survey. Go figure.

I would ask; how is Anet issuing these surveys? Which, are clearly thus far, not going to everyone. Based purely on the fact that they don’t play anymore in an effort to get them back? Completely random? Weekly? Monthly? The fact that they didn’t buy HoT?

Is it even legit, or is it a Phishing scam? Looks legit to us from the sender.

I don’t see any evidence of any such surveys here on the forums, nor, on an internet search.

I have read thousands of upset voices here, all trying to be heard. Now, I’ve gotten wind of a survey being sent out via e-mail, which offers a glimmer of hope, that someone actually wants to listen. But, from what I can see, it has only gotten sent to a guild member who has no clue about the game, and doesn’t care about it anymore anyway.

Shouldn’t a survey for improvement be sent to everyone? Or, if limited, or, if dealt over time, shouldn’t your computers at least search out the most active players, with the higher ranks, and higher hours of current game play in different categories? Or, the longest standing, currently played accounts? If it truly is a random survey, that certainly makes no sense at all, given the current climate! Let’s ask the people who don’t even play it anymore?

Either we have to wait our turn, and we will all get our chance. Or this may indeed take on a “No end to bad decisions” persona. I’ll not judge until I hear more. But, it doesn’t look good so far… I’d also like to know what is in it, but, I’m certain that my guildie won’t even take the time to find out…

Here’s what it says:

>>>
We’d love your feedback.

As we develop Guild Wars 2, it is critical for us to understand our players and their experiences. As such, we’d like to hear from you. We have decided to conduct a survey about the preferences of our playerbase regarding some very early ideas for potential features that may or may not be considered for development.

This survey will take approximately 15 minutes and is easiest to take on a desktop or laptop computer, not on a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet.

The unique link below will take you directly to the survey.

Take Survey

Please be assured that details of your survey will remain strictly confidential and will not be communicated to any other party or used for any sales purposes.

The survey will only be available for a limited time, so please respond at your earliest convenience. Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts.

- The Guild Wars 2 Team
<<<

….So, I would inquire. Who is actually getting these? Not me, and I’ve waited a week, just to make sure, before posting this question.

Completely agreed fireflyry… and OP, et al… 10 pages worth…

I have never, ever, rage quit GW2, ever, until recently. Click done, fed up. Unbelievably, I think I’m nearing the “completely done” with the game phase. Agreed, It’s supposed to be fun and relaxing, not a stressful second job on all fronts, including guild halls. I rarely even bother to rep any of my guilds anymore, big, or small. Not even the ones I really like and enjoy playing the game with. Why bother? So I can farm mats for a guild hall, and be told where and when to play? They’ve destroyed virtually everything that I’ve enjoyed about the game since GW1 since the HoT release, starting with guild stuff, and now progressing on through particle effects. And, they are not listening to anyone. Correction, they are in fact listening to someone… But who? Not the voices here, and not the majority of the core long term players.

Worse yet, they are acting like a disobedient dog running away with his ears folded back, just because he wants to go somewhere. He doesn’t really know where, but, he’s not about to stop running there just because of a little 4 lane highway and a few speeding cars. Pure determination to find something interesting to sniff is all that really matters.

I believe they are so overwhelmed with all the negative feedback since HoT, that they have no idea what to do with the piles of non-reversible changes they made, and directions that they chose to run, that I believe that they are completely lost. Much like the dog that didn’t pay attention to where he was running. He’s just there now, and forgot what he was doing in the first place, and doesn’t know where to go next.

They are acting like a small town college that some director decided that they want to have Big Ten football team, as to be recognized as a full fledged university. So they make big guilds and e-sports, and media their priority. They may have people in charge now that have no clue of their own history, and may have never even played the game. But they do know how to make spread sheets. They are running spreadsheets on their computers, and looking at flow charts, and trying to make something meaningful out of them, and trying make sense of their numbers.

Methinks numbers are falling off a cliff, from the looks of all the maps lately, and someone is resorting to more spreadsheets and unfounded schemes to increase ROI and reduce things like indirect labor expenses to impress their bosses. And by sinking mats into guild halls, the solution is clear as mud. Companies often get wadded up in politics, and bright ideas, and run astray from their core product lines, in the name of growth. Happens all the time. Good companies recognize something is going awry, and they square up with it. Others go into a full ostrich mode and bury their heads in the sand and begin spinning media yarns, and employing denial tactics.

Starting with GW’s very own history and their original guild mentality, which they themselves created. They have completely forgotten about the original game, and it’s core players. The lifers. The people that perpetually enjoy THIS game, and THIS game only, as their primary game of choice. The ones that want to play as they chose, wherever they choose, when they choose, within the game.

History of GW. (For those that don’t know, and as a reminder to Anet…) Anet designed, and implemented “Hero’s” in GW1, to enable even solo players to be able to participate in ALL events and instances in the game, and do so with a full party. Hero’s were AI mobs that you could EARN just by playing the game, and were used to fill in gaps in a party, or just form a full group of your own “Hero” team to play the entire game by yourself if you so chose. The core GW1 game meta WANTED EVERYONE to be able to play, even if the content required a group of 8 to complete it, and even if they were alone, they could use Hero’s. Their marketing design, creating their core players.

Now, they are trying to go hardcore180 degrees opposite, and pushing to require everyone to be in a large guild to get anything at all accomplished. Every angle of the game, now requiring huge groups of people, including having to have a guild hall, and farm tons of materials for it to earn anything for a guild. …Far from having your own group of 23 (? or so) Hero’s to choose from in GW1, to go relax and play on your own schedule. Which IS a part of GW very own history. Anet created it, not the players. They progressed forward and found some balance. Now, it’s tipping over the other way.

Companies need to advance, and improve, and grow. But, when they just start running with their ears folded back because they decided they need to be someplace else, and forget where they came from… Often ends badly.

I just want to play a fun game. Not farm mats for guild halls. Not wait for healers. Not wait for groups of 10. And, FWIW, I will never, ever, watch SOMEONE ELSE PLAYING THE GAME ON E-SPORTS.

Ears folded back… Done reading, done posting, pretty much done playing under the current direction.

Yes. But, it’s not the fault of the pre-purchase itself.

We loved the core game and we were compelled to pre-purchase it. Regretting the pre-purchase, is moot. One can regret purchasing it at all. But, if we had not pre-purchased it, we still would have logged in to find the major core changes that are making so many veterans here state that they do not want to play the game at all anymore after all these years (Since GW1).

Things which now, sadly, cannot really be undone. Things like gutting the small guilds, and guild earnings. Because they chose to embed guild earnings directly into construction of guild halls, instead of just making stand alone guild halls for everyone, and leaving the guild earnings alone and separate. Instead, they embedded the two. Now, a few big guilds have since spent zillions on materials to make silly things, like cups, and chairs already, so, it has become virtually irreversible. They simply can’t undo so much of what they’ve done. We’re stuck with it. Period. And that prospect really sucks.

Pre-purchase, or not, we simply can’t just go back and play the old core game, the way we liked to, because, the core has been completely upended.

…At this point, I would actually “not regret” gambling an additional $50-$100, if I could actually “pre-purchase” a complete “Do-Over HoT Package”. If they would immediately, and completely, revert ALL of the game back to the pre HoT content. And, go back to the drawing boards, and listen to what people are saying here. I would also be willing to wait 6 more months for the complete “Do Over HoT Package” to be released. I’d gamble it today, and download the reversion immediately. (Wishful thinking)

Because, I feel it too. As much as I really “want” to play GW2 now, maybe more than ever, I too, simply “don’t want” to play it at all anymore, for what it has become. The more I play, the more I hate it. For the same reasons that everyone has already wallpapered all over these forums. Regret yes. Wouldn’t have mattered, the core changed irreversibly anyway. That’s the real rub.

I think this is a fabulous idea. But, I can see a few key design elements that need twerking.

First, I believe this is going to use up valuable resources within our computers while we’re playing other games. Therefore, I think this should be made into a screen saver application that can be used during off peak gaming hours.. Thus, freeing up valuable computer resources when it is needed the most.

Secondly, it lacks the raw thrill of RNG. I believe this could be solved by programming Siege Razer to attack and capture towers in a random sequence. Which also solves the problem of our CRT pixels from being burned in, and will prevent over usage of the same memory addresses and premature wear in our SSDs.

I believe Microsoft had an old program involving fish that could be consulted for reference to help solve any problems during the design phase.

I think the only comparison that could possibly matter between EotN, and HoT, is whether you are enjoying the HoT expansion, as much as you did the EotN expansion.

Technology has changed. Graphics have changed. Engines (arguably) have changed. Data transmission has increased. Computers have grown. Yes, HoT should darned well be prettier, and have more dynamics, and phys-x, than EotN. No brainer there.

IMHO, Eye of the North was a true expansion on the existing GW game. People who already enjoyed the game had no reason not to continue to love that true expansion of the game. I absolutely did. IMHO, HoT is closer to an incomplete GW3 than it is an expansion pack of any sort, as almost everything has changed. Professions changed, Guild earnings changed, Skills changed, Landscapes changed. Countless new different forms of currency, and overhauled merit systems, etc.. Everything, about everything, has changed about GW2, with HoT. The old core and the new, not just the new.

Rhetoric, such as, how many employees they have now, and how they have grown, is pure irrelevant metaphysical drivel. So what? …5 million copies (I read that somewhere) of HoT sold so far @ an average of $65 (??) = $325 million dollars income. That’s almost a million dollars a year per employee for their efforts using those metrics, if you were to divide it up. But, that isn’t how it works. Nor, is the economics any measure of the expansion game. No bearing whatsoever on any comparison. (Although, you might indeed think it would at least tip the scales hugely in it’s favor, even with ball park numbers).

The question by the OP remains…

Personally, I enjoyed EotN immensely, as a true expansion to the GW game, which I truly loved at the time. And, I played the heck out of EotN enthusiastically for a very long time. And then yearned for more. What more needs to be said?

By comparison, to be able to cast a realistic vote, I’d have to ask myself; what have I done with the current game since HoT was released 3 weeks ago? Can I say the same, or better?

Since launch, …I’ve spent my in game savings from previous gaming time, and made another legendary. Marveled at the new HoT landscapes, while enjoying my new gliding skills, whenever I am actually high enough on the map to use them, and can figure out where I actually need to go, without getting killed first, while examining the 4 layer map, and actually getting there in a few hours, or less. Cursed the gorgeous new landscapes repeatedly, as seemingly unsustainable meta messes, in which I can’t really explore past the dead ended gates, nor, succeed in, without a zerg and a meta. Done quite a few meta events, repeatedly, just to open the map, only to suddenly wind up in an underpopulated map, and had to move maps yet again. Often frustrated, and unable to accomplish anything I really hoped to do there.

I’ve burned through the story content, which, I truly enjoyed while it lasted, in only a few days. (Except for the last episode, which remains too bugged to bother with.) So be it, but the story part is already at it’s end for the expansion. Nothing more to say there.

I have watched a beloved WvW essentially lose 3/4 of it’s playable maps, and many of it’s players, as the new, and genuinely pretty, boarder lands immediately became no place that any experienced WvW player really wants to be in. I suddenly lost interest in EBG as well, because, I realized that so many of the things I enjoyed doing in WvW were suddenly obsolete with HoT, and aren’t even re-obtainable as a goal. …Thus, I’ve spent probably an honest10 hours since the HoT release 3 weeks ago, playing WvW. As a hard core high ranking WvW addict, this is nothing but sad, to me. (The exact opposite of the consecutive all-night battles that I envisioned it would be.) Much of what I liked to do there, simply vanished with a download, and the core game play has changed, and somehow became something that is not nearly as enjoyable to me anymore.

Since HoT release, I have done absolutely nothing at all, zero, with my small guild of 9. As I discovered that small guilds have been written out of the script, and they can’t really earn anything at all like they could before (As little as it may have been, it was something, and it was enjoyable for us to earn those little somethings that were important to, us and often to my WvW game play). I’ve realized that even if we do call on our other guild friends to help get a guild hall open, we can’t do anything with it, nor, really earn anything anymore anyway, so, why bother? I realized it is useless content outside of our secondary guilds. Since HoT, I’ve also found all the things we HAD EARNED, have actually been stripped from us, and taken away, and, as minimal as they were, we simply can’t enjoy them anymore. Which I am not enjoying. I’ve since conceded to the reality that most of my real core guildies may never really come back afterall, as they still refuse to pay money for old story content they missed, and are luke warm about re-learning the “all new” game all over again.

Since release, I have built my 9th character profession. A Revenant. And instantly leveled it up to level 80. using just one of my 20 plus leveling starters in my bank, and by using 50 of the 200, or so, instant level scrolls that were stacked up, from former game play. Not sure what I want to do with the character now though. But it wasn’t very exciting leveling it up that way. But, playing the 3 year old content to level it up was the only other option, as the new HoT “expansion” content offers no place to level up a new character with new content, as it is only hard core end game content, not really an expansion of the full game. Leaving leveling of the all new characters completely stale. It was, thus, not terribly stimulating game play for me, gaining the new character class.

I’ve read a lot of forums that I didn’t read too much of before.

I’ve gotten to play the game with my son again for a few days, as he happily rejoined. Though he has sadly re-quit again when his story line ended in a few hours.

…That’s the only way I know how to accurately measure, and make a comparison of the two expansions. EotN was a great, complete, and true expansion. A continuation of the game we loved. And, I loved it, and I enjoyed playing it for many, many, hours on end.

HoT is leaving me lost in visual stunningville. While, leaving me dabbling in old content. Frustrated with the loss of enjoyable things that were taken away and/or completely changed beyond likability. I’m unexpectedly finding the expansion disheartening. We can glide now. It’s beautifully landscaped by truly amazing and talented 3D computer artists. But, to me, It feels more, and more, like I’m starting the entire game over, with a very incomplete version of GW3. And, in contrast to the day before the release, I’m honestly not really enjoying much of it at all now. Because, not just the new content, but, the original content, and core game mechanics, metrics, and reward systems, et al.. were completely, and utterly, upended as well. Not just the new game changed, the old changed immensely as well. So, IMO,considering just the observed facts of the post expansion game play. Which was a better expansion measured by pure satisfaction and enjoyment that came out of them both?

EotN, by a landslide.

HoT has so many merits, advancements, and some truly amazing stuff. But, overall, has somehow completely train wrecked the entire core I loved in many ways IMO. Wait and see, and hope for the best… No comparison.

Seems the frustration of our high end computers performing badly are possibly gone?

No crashes anywhere, so far, with the 64bit. (couple of days now)

Frame rates are up across the board. Ultra everything (always was). But, I have even added Occlusion (which can kill frame rates). I’m smoking through it. Limited to 60 frames. Seeing 60fps so often now, I can’t believe my eyes. Never dropped below 50 fighting Mordremoth, (for 2+ hours and failing with the bugs, but, I digress, It meant that it was a good long testing of the system, since it crashed on the previous story instance on 32bit the day before ). …Awesome frame rates everywhere. Finally!

Truth be known, I did suffer one crash today. I unwittingly logged on with the 32 bit client!…. Gates went down in forgotten city…bam done… Re-logged into 64 bit.. Smooth as silk. No more issues. Very noticeable improvements, across the board, in many ways.

Seems it is the ability to finally be able to use the additional memory addresses, and actually tap into the 16GB memory. Recently, I found that in the new HoT content, and elsewhere, all I had to to cause a crash, was press screen shot, and it would lock up without fail. No more. Way smoother, and considerably faster frames, without a single glitch so far. Finally, thank you.

I’m venturing a judicious bet, that the high end stuff is benefiting greatly from this, and the lower end stuff may actually be suffering by using it, as they may not have the resources to benefit from it. If you can move, and process the 64bit data, ie… processing power, and large, fast, memory, it sounds like you are smiling big. Way more effective movement of data.

I will suggest, you could probably be a bit clearer on the Beta install instructions. It inherently makes it sound like adding a 64bit client to the game means that it should probably be in the program files (64 bit) and not in the (x86) (32bit) files. etc… Reading into vagueness too closely no doubt… Drop it into the (x86) program file. Something like that… Trying to out think the over simplified instructions and file structures can actually make it more complicated than it is… A little more clarity possibly.

So far, nothing but BRAVO!

(Pre-apologies, I type really fast)

Agreed… all good points…

…“I don’t if guilds have actually gotten their upgrades yet, but in the stress test here are some things that you ought to keep an eye on”…

Wow. Every item on Infusion’s list there, just takes the topic right off the rails. But, also, kind of ties it all together. (sigh) Truthfully, everything on that list makes me want to cry for the imminent loss of real WvW. The big guilds will soon control all maps, and all of the game play, and only those big guilds. Add to that list, “Squads” and, on, and on. It just hands complete control of the game to a few select commanders and guilds. And, it makes everyone else just pawns.

So, is WvW supposed to be PvE now, or is it just GvG now? (I’m so confused. lol) Why not just treat the entire server as a single server guild, and let the respective servers earn those items through weekly game play, and erase them all at the end of the match? Because whatever it has become, it’s clearly just not WvW anymore. It does make a really nice stop for premium harvesting now though… lol. (sad, but we all know that is true now too). Every “guild crafting” item on Infusion’s list there, just shows that everything we’ve done and earned in the past, and everything most of us players liked to contribute with, is right out the window. It doesn’t exist anymore for many of us.

Personally, I figured I would never get the new HoT story lines done, for many months. Because I wouldn’t want to leave the new WvW maps long enough to play the new content. Sadly, the opposite has been true. I have dumfoundedly found a lack of incentive to even play WvW. Probably, in part, because I don’t care about the other 3 maps anymore, or, what the score is there. But for sure, the fact that, most of us long time players in smaller guilds can’t even +5 a camp, or a tower, or do upgrades anymore. Our contribution is greatly reduced now. What we had earned, has been stripped from us. So, what fun is that? Additionally, as pointed out above; If the only thing that matters is an ego pumping “youtube video” of one guild besting another, what good does that do for the server as a whole? I think you guys may be absolutely correct. The big guild’s egos may not ever allow themselves to try and run guild tag-less groups, because, it may be way more a matter of GvG now, and, not so much actually tactically winning the match anymore.

If we are not collectively playing to win the match for the entire server, but, ONLY to best another big guild, and have exclusive rights to control of the game via guild hall crafting. What is there that makes others want to play, and what does the topic’s plausible tactics even matter? That’s GvG, not WvW… And, I must admit, I suddenly can’t find much that makes me truly want to play WvW since the HoT release. And, I was an every single day WvW player. They have taken all of the things we loved to play for, and could do in the past, and taken them away. And, as Infusions list shows, have put ALL of the privileges and control, into the exclusive hands of a select few, that will soon have complete control of the game. Even players with rank 2000, 3000, 4000, are suddenly unable to be anything but pawns to commanders of the big guilds. Commanders, I would add, that often aren’t even ranked to have full mastery yet. In short, the small guild players can’t contribute nearly as much to the good of the server anymore, other than for fighting skills alone.

So, after reading the responses so far, and thinking about the topic some more, I realize that my personal drive is always to contribute to the whole server, and winning as a server, not guild domination. I guess that I actually hope now that we might actually start fighting WvW without any guild representation, and zero Guild based upgrades. Play more for the server, play to win the matches. Remove all these exclusive “guild crafting” upgrades, and put them back into the earn-ability, and control, of ALL dedicated WvW players who earn it by playing hard on their servers, match by match, and reset all of the “Server Earned” upgrades weekly.

So, seemingly, some off the topic rails feedback, is actually, somehow, right on topic, and nails the answer to the coffin. Unless we care less about which guild we play for, and, care more about winning for the servers we play for… Tactics like this, no matter how tactically sound, or plausible, or FUN, they might be. May indeed never be tried, or, used, because of the current status of big guilds suddenly taking full control of all WvW upgrades, buffs, and controls .

I think Infusion’s answer wins thus far. (In an indirectly direct way.) But they all seem to sum it up pretty well.

Cheers.

Now that it is sinking in. (As many guilds have earned no guild credits since Oct 23). It is evident that normal game play, no longer earns any guild you rep, anything. Nada. It seems pretty clear now, that you have to initiate a guild quest to earn anything at all for your guilds.

The question then becomes: Why rep. any of your guilds during any normal game play? Especially in WvW, (and probably PvP as well). It serves no real purpose anymore. Unless you queue up a guild event, and are present at the correct date and time to complete the event with your guild, your represented guilds earn nothing for normal representation of them, as it did for the last 3 years.

So, how might this affect WvW? I am starting to believe that there could be a huge strategic advantage to those servers who purposely do NOT rep any guilds during game play.

Consider this: Your group of 30 players, whom are all representing their guilds, comes face to face with a group of 30 enemy players. But, unlike in the past. This enemy has no guild identifications. Are you facing a guild group? Are you facing a solid open field fight guild? Are you facing a rag-tag fugitive fleet of misfits? Should you engage them? Or, should you head for a strategic defensible position? They can see your guild tags, but, you can’t see theirs. They know who you are, and, what they are up against immediately. You don’t. The balance of loot bags, is tipped in their favor already.

You find out that it is a solid fight guild, and you are dispatched quickly. But, which guild was it? Who was their leader? Who is it, that is currently on the map?

You regroup and suddenly find another group of 30. They too, are not representing any guilds. Is it the same group? Who are they? Who might be their commander? When one of the groups leaves the map, which one left? Which group just came onto the map? Which guilds are they? Which players, or guilds are currently left on the map? Do you need to follow them to another map? Or, do you need to stay put?

How do you snipe a commander when you can’t even identify what guild they are in? (much harder) Or, even identify who the commander might be? How do you pick off stray militia if they can’t be singled out as such? How many actual guild groups do they have on the map, and what types?

There seems to be a huge potential tactical advantage to running in WvW without representing any guilds at this point. With virtually no disadvantages that can’t be easily overcome.

It seems that server could potentially deny the enemy of important strategic intelligence (at the expense of guild glory, of course) by running without guild tags now. Since, the current revisions dictate that normal game play earns your chosen guilds nothing. The question remains; unless, you have a guild mission up and running, why rep any guild in WvW at all now? Even if a guild claims a tower, by repping, and un-repping. Or, briefly completing a guild mission by doing the same. That only identifies to the enemy that there is at least one member of that guild on the map, nothing more.

Guild chat? Easily overcome with team speak. I can’t think of many other disadvantages to running rep-less WvW anymore. Mostly advantages.

Until such a time, that normal game play earns a chosen guild something, why not take advantage of this, and deny the enemy of very substantial battle field information? It is much harder to fight an unknown enemy, than it is to say “XXX” is on the map, here they come, here is what we have to do… Known enemy battles might then become reserved for GvG’s?

I think “put your pets away” might possibly become less important than, “stand down your guild tags”. And, I think it’s likely that the first WvW server that faces a server of completely unidentifiable guilds and enemies, could possibly drive some major changes in deceptive tactics. …Or, maybe some guilds will just want to remain seen?… But, it’s a plausible big change in tactical game play that we may be facing, none the less. Time will tell.

…Needs to be said. I’m going to go to bat for this topic.

So, per Colin’s statement, a small guild of 3, or 6, or, 9, or 11 real life family, friends, relatives, and co-workers does not constitute a real guild anymore, is that correct Colin? Really!?

Husbands, wives, and kids? Not a real guild? Really!?

I know for a fact, that there are grandparents playing the game with their grand-kids to be able to hang out, if only through their avatars. They are not really considered a guild!? (You should cherish this fact, not quash it!)

Guilds like this are supposed to invite outsiders into their personal guild, so they can grow-up into a real guild now? Hardly! These players don’t deserve to be able to open the guild hall they paid for? They wouldn’t benefit greatly by having a guild hall to hang out in, and incentive to play the game more? And to think…They paid for it with the expansion pack with hard green cash!

Personally, I paid the full $100 for it, to help development costs, and, help get one sooner. And, so did some of my (“guildies?”). And, now, we are being told that because we all work different shifts, and some are busy raising children, and some are temporarily sidelined with internet connection problems, that we can’t open our guild hall. Nor, earn guild credits for doing things we do. Unless, of course, we pay other players (or, recruit from our other guilds) to help open it. Or, invite outsiders, that we don’t know in real life, into all of our small friends and family guilds?

And, to think, it is just an instance on our computers. One that we paid hard cash for mind you!

I find it really quite insulting, to so many of us, that Colin essentially stated that a small guild with “husbands and wives and kids”, or even one with “3 generations of family”, (you read that right, they do exist in game), is “Not even considered a real guild anymore”. The core values of this game have apparently gone right into the toilet. What happened to Eye of the North values, where we all had our own personal halls to share as we pleased?

The dictionary defines a guild as: “an organized group of people who have joined together because they share the same job or interest.” Maybe we do. Maybe just not in the same time slots.

Personally, I feel that my guild can’t really contribute to much of anything anymore. We can’t even +5 camps in WvW anymore, we can’t earn points for anything to contribute to anything anymore, because we suddenly don’t really count as a guild anymore. Because we all have real lives, and we all work, and play, on different schedules. And, we don’t want people that we can’t call on the phone, or hang out with in real life, in our guild.

But, we do see each other in real life regularly, and can discuss how we probably won’t have a guild hall any time soon, if ever. Nor, can we do anything in game that benefits our guild anymore, because we can’t seem to get 5 of us together at the same time. And, it instantly makes them want to play less, not play more.

Yet somehow our small guild that “Isn’t really considered a guild anymore”, previously, had all kinds of things earned, which have now been mostly taken away. So, to combat abusers of the system, you would quash the true Guild Wars players that have often been with you since the beginning of GW1? Seems more like “Anti-Guild Wars” to me. Yo, computer nerds, you’re now required to join the football team, and cheer-leading squads! Be a part of the new big corporate guild conglomeration! Join the guild union! Show up for guild meetings, or get kicked. 100% rep. guild now taking applications, fill out an application, and we’ll consider you for our big guild, but only if you run approved builds, and can play at least 80% of the time in your designated time slots, and only if you are a profession we need! Shape up and play right!

….Or, you don’t really count as a real guild anymore. No thank you.

We’ll get our guild hall open, one way or another, someday. But, IMHO, it’s not the way it ever was, nor, is it the way it should be now. It’s essentially brings new meaning to being “guild kicked”. And, it’s not exactly fun, nor rewarding, listening to everyone else in game talking about their wonderful new guild halls. While so many of us don’t really even have a chance to open our own, on our own. Feels pretty lousy to a lot of us. Especially due to the $50 to $100 that the rest of us spent towards developing “their” shiny new guild halls.

…Had to be said.

Typical hour in the past?

Most often running off peak hours. Running with different guilds at different times. Generally in team speak. Covering all maps, EB and BL’s. Balancing capping and “Points Per Tick” with finding good fights. Generally I run in groups of 10 to 40, while helping to take care of doly’s, siege refreshment, upgrades etc… +5-ing camps.

Compared to an hour in the new BL?

Not much constructive here.
We fumble around and get angry and bored, accomplishing very little in slow motion, while waiting for the EB queue to pop, because that is the only place the game is being played now. We discuss how the people that designed this have obviously never played WvW for more than 10 minutes, and how ludicrous the map is.

Paradigm and build changes?

None. Not interested in playing WvW in this PvE map at all. Although it would have made a GREAT map for new HOT PvE content somewhere in Tyria. It feels as wrong as “Rifting” was in Aion. PvE with some unsolicited random ganking.

How long does it take to cap compared to the old…

We all know the answer to that one. Forevvverrrr. Watch some TV, play guitar, find things to do while you wait for gates to go down, and lords to go down. If you can find your way there in the first place.

Affect long sessions in WvW?

(At rank 2k+) I honestly was waiting for something fresh, and I’m honestly contemplating whether I want to play it at all anymore. I will try to force myself to learn and like the new BL content, but, most likely, It will all be spent in EB now.

Loot and WXP in the new BL?

Once you pass WvW rank 1385 and have all WvW rank masteries, it’s moot. Other loot changes, I don’t feel I’ve gathered much of anything in the new BL. I do feel the new harvesting synthesizers are ridiculous! Everyone gets rooted in the towers, camps, keeps, to harvest large quantities of mats that you never, ever, got in quantities like that anywhere, and still shouldn’t. It’s a game stopper….. Ugggggg, now we wait, again, for everyone to harvest, and ignore what we are supposed to be doing. Just give em in drops for capping, don’t stop game progress. Or, put the harvesting nodes back into the map.

I do enjoy some PvE, so Elite Specialization loot ratio matters less to me in WvW than to others.

How to improve the new maps?

Here’s what I would like to see tried for at least a week or two. I think you should first return the old Boarder Lands to the game. And, at the same time, replace/swap out EB map with a copy of the EOTM map, adding a castle in the middle (Stone Mist), and letting us fight on that map for real, for a solid week or two. I think that map would be exciting in a real WvW match up. And, they could be tweaked if need be.

Give the new BL map to a PvE map as a story line map. Give us the old maps, while you figure this one out.

Describe to a new WvW player?

I’ll never know, I wouldn’t do that to them.

Describe this map to a vet, that is new to the map?

We ourselves are all vets that are new to the new map. Our descriptions of the new BL’s to ourselves here aren’t flattering here. We seem to be describing it as: Don’t go there.

Current maps you can find me now?

In queue for EBG.

Also, HoT maps, Halloween events Labyrinth, any but the new BL’s.

I don’t know how people think we could use just one of these new BL maps in WvW? Because, they aren’t divided up for 3 competing servers, they are designed otherwise, for only one owner. Or, would it be just a free for all, whoever gets it owns it?

I would really like to see you swap out the EOTM map (with a castle added) with EBG for a couple weeks as stated above. The regular EOTM would remain as is. But we would have a duplicate map in EB with some slight tweaks (Center castle added), and fight over it, for real, for a whole week instead of K-training it for 4 hours. That map could actually provide good battles.

Auto upgrades should be scrapped too. Even if personal cost was removed. Make it free, but make it an important part of the game again.

Thank you for actually asking.

T2. Same thoughts here. I was trying to give it some time before commenting. But, I never thought I’d want to see the old borderlands again, when the new ones came out because they were so awesome looking, but, I do.

So far, I feel like this is nothing but a massive PVE Drytop 3.0 map. Sadly, I find myself literally putting my character to sleep at every gate (which took far too long just to get to), and going to get a beverage, making a sandwich, vacuuming the floor, doing laundry, and then coming back to see if the gates are down yet. Soooo slow.

The very few fights I have gotten into, (T2) I’ve found the terrain is so drab that I can’t see the red over the browns. I find myself working my way right into the enemy because I can’t see the red in there. And the terrain is so overdone that you can hide a Zerg 6 feet away (never find a single fight, which is the whole idea of what we do want in the first place). And it could take 5 minutes to get to them, even at that distance.

I don’t ever feel like I am even in a keep or a tower. It all feels the same as the terrain. It doesn’t feel like you are capturing an objective at all. It feels like you are wandering in nothing more, than, more overdone terrain. If they weren’t built directly over the old maps (which I find unexpected, and hugely disappointing), you would otherwise have no idea where the perimeter, or, structure is even supposed to be, or what the objective is. Everything seems like a giant jumbled up mess. It doesn’t feel like WvW PVP. It feels, and plays, like Drytop 3.0.

Agreed, we have to learn the maps. So far, to me, it is just lonely feeling, and slow paced PvE. The gates have to go down so slowly because it will take so long to have to go defend something. But defend what? Where’s the wall? Which side of it are we even on?

The middle cannon is a huge, long, slow PVE event, requiring large numbers of PvE’ers. Which is certain to assure, that the team that is already pummeling the others, will continue to do so. Agreed.

IMO, it’s supposed to be WVW PVP. Live player fights, and fast paced action. 3 identical maps like this, feels like it is going to leave EB and EOTM as the only places to get fast paced action and fights, from what I can see so far. I really, really, hope I am wrong.

Answer 1: Additional 13GB +10% of your hard drive total= Minimum Free Space needed for HOT.

I agree, those requirements listed are not for optimum game play. After all, they are: The “Minimum” requirements. But, it’s a helpful start. Clearly, that info already helped me. I would have been pretty upset when I realized I couldn’t download the expansion to my SSD. Hopefully, this info will save a few others some anguish too?

So, In the spirit of continuing it as a “what are we all going to really need” thread. (Beyond “the bare minimum requirements”) I say we solicit all the additional data we can here, while we still have a few weeks to go shopping!

WvW map is going to be a complete surprise for most of us, and I’m sure most of us would appreciate any useful PC loading data from those who have played it, or from Dev’s, or Anet. The deep Z axis, and gliding, creates some new guesswork on processing and loading variables there.

Reference points like those contributed above are very helpful IMO.

If you’ve played the new maps that most of us haven’t been able to play, and know what your talking about, lay some data down for us!

I guess everyone in the game kinda knows where their PC stands in the current game. But, with largely un-experienced new content, we all have some concerns. I think any helpful comparisons and observations would be welcome to all of us. More/Less CPU intensive? More/Less GPU intensive? Not much different? Compared to the old WvW maps, I saw…?

If a thread can help everyone get a realistic “heads up” before the actual download, and we still have3 weeks to shop… Heck yeah, tell us what you know!

Thank you Jedi…

Clearly it’s definitely something people need to look at. …And there it is.

Clearly, I myself, need a new SSD before launch, or it will have to be installed on the clattering mechanical rust platter.

And thank you Sam for breaking it down to 22+13 to eliminate confusion.

Tyvm

There is all kinds of information on gear, and characters, and elite specializations here, but, I have not seen anything on what this HOT release is going to ask of our computers.

Like many of you, I have a frequently updated hand built gaming computer. And, I am already foreseeing some issues that I may have. The release may, in fact, upend a lot of player’s computers unexpectedly.

For starters, GW2 is currently 21.7GB. Yes, it is.

Solid State Drives:

I, like many, have a large secondary hard drive to put all my stuff on. But, as we know, the game needs to be on the SSD, along with the OS, to see any gains in load times, etc.. My 128GB SSD currently keeps going into the red, due to less than 10% free space. And, I am continually cleaning it up, and have now removed virtually everything that is not needed for my usage, except for GW2, and the OS. Programs and OS’s bloat, we can’t change that.

So, for starters; How many GB’s is HOT going to be? These kinds of details would be greatly appreciated, if they are made available to us BEFORE launch, so that we can have time to make necessary changes now, and not after the fact. Do I need to pony up for a 256K SSD, and spend all the time cloning/initializing drives, before launch? Or not? We can decide for ourselves. But only if we have some real info.

There are tons of other things that can affect all of us at launch. From chip-sets, to CPU’s, GPU’s, and internet connections. But, my point is made. If the details have been published somewhere, my apologies, I have not seen them, nor did my search find them.

If they have not, please give us some information that can truly tell us whatever we may, or may not need, to gear up our PC’s up for this release, BEFORE launch.

Cheers

I’m with y’all. I too worked on getting 8 level 80’s geared up, one in each profession, just for this WvW tournament. And like the rest of you, I am supposed to be excited about season 2? Playing only my oldest and most tired out character?

Anet has code that can lock 300 people in battle, in real time, and do real time complex calculations, taking into account every variation in armor and stats, and people throwing all possible combinations of base skills, and using unlimited variations in combo’s. And Anet can give us the results in real time. Anet can calculate the trajectory of moving 3D characters through 3D fields of play. All at the same time, from players all over the world, no less. Billions, and Trillions, and Quagillions, of complex calculations per second, across multiple adjoined servers. Anet can also support real time auction houses…The most complex of complex codes everywhere you look.

…But Anet can’t create basic programming to do a “one time basic addition math calculation” on an account? Anet can’t come up with an answer to: 14+179+4+ 39+ 44+21+187+53= ?

Oh wait, the first five levels are half levels, so that makes it higher than 2nd grade math. So, maybe hire a 3rd grader? Just spit-balling some options here.

With so many years, so many hours, and so many dollars into the GW games, I hate posting anything so negative. But, I recruited a bunch of friends to our server 2 months ago for WvW. And they are already gone because of this kind of stuff.

And, after seeing this latest completely meaningless reset in points, and watching a dying WvW server, I’ve almost completely lost interest in season 2. I have no interest in playing the same old characters at all. I suddenly don’t care if we win, or lose, or if everyone quits. I don’t care about better match-ups, or any of it. It just genuinely makes me sad. Because it all had so much potential with all new characters and professions. Seemingly the Anet team can’t get their priorities, and our incentives to play straight. I just want to play my other characters, with the points that I’ve earned playing countless hours of WvW. I don’t want to play them as a scrub that can’t even run an arrow cart, can’t shoot a supply draining cow, and can’t use the superior ram that I just built, as powerfully as the up-level beginner next to me.

Why did I even level up my characters at all? To wait for July? Sorry, that’s boating season. Maybe next December?

“Get it done before the season 2 match-up, or, you’re fired, and I’ll hire someone who can…” That’s honestly what I’d say if I was the boss there, seeing a huge loss of player base, and loss of revenue looming, and a having threads full of people saying the same thing. …And it would magically get done before season 2. Yes, it would. …Sorry boss, we can’t do basic math programming on static characters on a player’s account for one time use… Nope. Not buying it. It’s like having high school kids who can’t get a 2 page essay done in 4 months, because they just started on it 2 days ago…

“Before season 2. Or, the players won’t be the only ones walking.” That really is what I’d say if I was the boss there… Just food for thought I guess, since I’m not. I’m just another long time GW player. (…Maybe.)

I just visited the Dead End bar.

So… Hero. …How did it feel to stomp out Scarlet? She asks me…

…I thought I’d offer some suggestions, to add the list of possible answers that you can select:

1. How should I know, I never made it past the Knights Guards.

2. Empty. When I got there she was already half dead. I just put on a creepy back pack, stumbled over a few orange stains on the floor, and she groaned and died at the sight of me. It was almost like we were dating or something.

3. I’ll get back to you on that… I will consult the one who actually killed her before the patch.

4. I wouldn’t know for sure, but if it was anything like killing that same single Knight’s Guard 17 times, I think it would have been pretty satisfying.

5. Scarlet’s hologram didn’t really exist silly, it was just another one of Scarlet’s tricks. If it did exist, we would have seen it after dozens of battles. …Beware, Scarlet is alive and well.

6. Wut?

7. Brahm doesn’t really want to hear this either. Get him another beer please.

8. That’s a Dead End question.

9.

Hmmm…

Exactly what Zax said. I’ve given up hope for being able to do the Living Story on my server now. It hasn’t succeeded since the patch that I know of. I figured I’d need to be on during prime time on the weekend to get it… didn’t help. Try it on 3rd shift with 14 people on blue, 17 on red, and 9 on green. … Oh wait, we could have all 40 on one color, and …. still fail.

You should not have to guest to Black Gate to do the Living Story. So it seems everyone quits trying. You can only wait so many hours for it to start again, and waste so many hours watching it fail, over and over, before you lose interest in playing the game.

It’s another Tequatl event. Those few (on very few servers) who got it early on, are the only ones that will ever get to finish the content.

It’s the Living Story, not bonus Fractal level 163. And the majority can’t even get to the ship, to see it, or play it. Not because we as individuals are failing, but because even if we do have149 others on our server trying, we can’t get it done. And we can’t play it 24 hours a day straight, hoping to be in the one group that succeeds….

If anyone spends 3 hours, trying 3 times, just to complete a Living Story event, and can’t complete it, then it’s a failure event. I’ve probably wasted 12 hours watching it fail 12 times. How many more tries should I give it?

I’d like to finally fight Scarlet after all this year long story content, but as it stands, it looks like it will never happen now. Do you want us to see and play the story line, or not?

My guildies previewed the rawhide vest at the WVW merchant with other races, and theirs rendered it fine. I also previewed it with my Norn Ranger, to see if it was just mine, and it also previews it wrong on my character as well. So, buying another one won’t fix it.

So, it seems to be a Norn/WVW armor issue with the rawhide vest.

My Norn Ranger has Invaders armor from WVW. (Berzerker)

The inside of the coat does not render when viewed from the front side. It does from the rear. But, I should be wearing a long coat, and it looks like I am just wearing pants from the front. IOW…When viewed from the front, you can see between my legs, when I should be seeing the inside of the coat.

The side panels render fine, but the coat does not.

I have looked at others armor that appears to be the same kind, and the other ones I have seen, seem to render fine.

I’ve removed it and reinstalled it, with no help.

Is the code for “just my piece of armor” bugged? Or, is it because it’s on a Norn? Or, some kind of a clipping issue with the ranger?

It is not my computer graphics, because my guildies can see that it is wrong as well.

I’m uncomfortable looking between too many other character’s legs, just to see if mine is the only bugged armor. And, I don’t want any trouble for looking inside other character’s armor….

Looks dumb. Can we fix it?

Cheers

I agree. Some new content is fun. But, It’s killing the rest of the game.

My 17 year old son, who played GW1 for years, and waited years for this game to come out, absolutely won’t play it anymore. 1. Because the original story is dead, and they threw the book out the window, (ie. there are 4 dragons that have never been hunted). 2. He thinks that disappearing content designed to make you stick with the game every day, which has nothing to do with Guild Wars, and has everything to do with marketing trinkets, is just not Guild Wars anymore. 3. The announcement of no expansion packs, and implementation of disappearing content, and complete wasted effort. He says he’ll be back in 2015 IF they offer an expansion pack.

My friends who left, won’t come back because of disappearing content. Hey guys, come back, it’s really awesome, you should see what they did… oh wait, you missed it, it’s gone, nevermind.

Here’s how it looks from my generation, (you know, the generation that invented video games). In the 70’s you had to be available to watch a TV show, if you missed it, too bad. And that sucked. In the 80’s people had a chance to record a show, but, it cost a lot, and it failed a lot, but, it proved what everyone wanted. We wanted to watch shows on our schedule, not theirs. Nowadays, we record everything on DVR, and always watch it “when we want to”.

Now, GW2 has a brilliant “Back to the 70’s” idea. Play it now, or miss it forever. …Bad idea.

I would love to play new content. But, it has to be on my time. And, I myself, am losing interest, due to all the missed content that I can never play now.

Instead of wasting time and energy on “Super Adventure Box” garbage, which has nothing to do with GW2, they should be adding permanent new GW2 content. Content that follows the real Guild Wars story. And content that is available “FOREVER”.

This is a DVR society, not a “schedule my life around a limited time offer game” society. People want to play it, when they have time to play it.

Anyone buying the game now, is completely lost on story line, (which is way out in left field anyway). Oh, sorry, you missed everything. …Who would ever want to start watching a TV series, if they could never see all the episodes they missed? Nobody. Who want’s to buy GW2 now, if they’ve missed half the content?

History, and marketing lesson. Q: Why did vinyl recordings survive, when radio broadcasts were always free? Because, people could play what they wanted, when they wanted to.

Some of the new content is really good. But, those entire areas are gone. The content is just gone. And what’s left when it’s gone, is the same old re-runs.

Add the content with a Living Story, so be it. But, you need to keep the content, forever. So everyone can play it, …forever. Expanding the game is awesome. But taking the brilliant new content away every 2 weeks is, …epic long term fail.

That’s silly. You can’t claim you have a fix if it’s only worked for a day. If it was that simple, Anet would have fixed it 3 months ago. This is so random for everyone, and has been a problem long term. Seemingly, only having the size of the battles in common. The bigger the battle, the more players, the more often it happens, but it’s still utterly random. Sometimes you can go through mega battles without a problem, other times, it happens 4 times in a play session with much smaller battles.

I’ve been locked up in the middle of sieges a half a dozen times in the last week alone. But, some days it’s fine.

The software is clearly crashing due to an overload of inputs from a cacophony of weapon sounds, in some way or another. To say it will destroy your computer is hardly a professional opinion. The loading from the game itself, will stress all computers and heat things up, but calling this audio bug a computer wrecker, is ludicrous. The plausible answer is that the processor cooked itself because of the huge load this game put on it, and because you got an air bubble in the thermal coating. That would be a billion times more likely than an audio software bug mysteriously trashing a chip-set for some unknown reason.

However, we all know that it IS a game-play wrecker when it happens. When you repeately lose battles, and lose credit for battles that you were winning when it locks up, and you have to turn the audio off and play silently, and hope it doesn’t lock up your computer all together. …Before you can reboot.

FWIW, It’s pretty clear to me now that it affects all ranges of computers. Moderate to wild. Mine is a top of the heap, hand built predator, (for a few more days anyway) i7-3770K, P8-Z77, OC, SSD, 16Gb vengence, crossfired, 5.1 digital audio…. blah, blah, blah… Yeah, and it fails like all the rest. So don’t go buying a new computer because of this. Low settings, or high. It fails just the same as the rest, just as randomly, and unexpectedly.

It doesn’t seem to have anything in common at all, nor any real logic. A friend of mine is running some of my old spare parts, in a plain Jane clunker with no audio card, and he has never had it happen once yet. Go figure. But, I have no doubt it will startle him too, when it finally does happen to him.

Here’s what I think. At the very least, Anet really needs to step up and tell people to quit troubleshooting their computers, and quit buying new computers because of this, and give us some more info on the issue, since they clearly know it’s a big issue, and have admitted it’s a software issue. Of course, it desperately needs a fix. But, in the mean time, quit making people pull their hair out, while needlessly troubleshooting their computers, and speculating like Mayans with an empty calender and a crayon. When it’s become clear that it’s a software issue, not a computer issue.

Maybe Anet doesn’t have the solution yet. But please, tell us what you DO know, and if there ARE any things we can do to minimize it’s occurrences. Give us some facts to work with here. Sparing us the old wives tales, and snake oil solutions that are being spread on so thick now..

I actually just found the “big thread” on this…. The search words not being common make it harder to pin down info on the topic I guess.. Humming, ringing, audio loss, oscillating tone, sound bug…

This issue actually just started for me…. I guess it’s been going on for a long time for some players… I had no idea it was an old and beaten down topic.

I’ll read the 12 pages on the other thread, and stop troubleshooting now and wait for the fix….

I’ve commented in the past on the other side of this topic. Now, I’ve waited to see how the bot situation would level out.

Across the board. I say “Thank You”, to Arena Net, for getting rid of almost ALL the bots on my server. My server was truly overrun by them. (Borlis Pass)

I’m sure there were some bad deals. And, I’m sure it made some people angry, if they were truly wronged. Others, I’m sure, cried foul, when they were guilty.

When they pulled the trigger, and all the bots disappeared, almost overnight, it did a few really big things IMO. But, it wasn’t actually all good right away.

Right away, it was a huge relief to see them all gone, but, it created some voids, because the numbers of “characters” on my server dropped dramatically. This left some playable areas almost void of any signs of life. And, even though they were formerly almost all bots, they were still killing stuff. Now, there was nobody else to kill stuff but yourself, and it made it hard to move through difficult areas.

Prices made some huge shifts too. Things got expensive, very quickly. But, as many of us expected, this made our own stuff more valuable to craft, and to sell.

Just like the real world, it takes time for an economy to recover.

Now, after some time, all the empty player spots on my server seem to be filling up nicely. There are live players filling the areas again, making them not only playable, but, playable with real people working together, and having fun. Not just watching bots running around stealing stuff.

The economy in the game is recovering nicely, and developing as it should. Gold and Orange items are expensive to buy now, but they are also valuable to sell now. Ecto is expensive now too. As it should be. They don’t call it “Legendary” armor, because it should only take 3 days to earn it, do they? It is Legendary, because it’s hard to earn. It wasn’t before. Now it is.

Enough said. …IMO, the game is like “night and day” better since the bots were vanquished. It was frustrating waiting for something to happen. But, they lived up to what they said they would. They stepped up, lined up the ducks, and pulled the trigger.

Personally, after waiting and seeing… I can’t thank them enough for cleaning up the game, and ridding it of all the bots.

Are they ALL gone? Probably not. But, I have honestly only seen one or two in the last month. Was anybody wronged? Sadly, probably. No doubt.

But, I say…. credit where credit is due. Thanks for taking the game back for the live players!

lol…interesting….

The Mes comments are great! Mes is actually my primary. It’s a different playing style for sure. And tricky to get the hang of it. It’s most similar to a Rit. in GW IMO. I hated the Rit, until I “got it” and then I loved it the most too.

It’s not a hack and slash class. It’s aligning lots of little pokes up, and then stacking them up for a big smash. One problem being, when others knock the target out of our dreaded AOE circles before we can land the big hit…

You’re right. It seems like there are a lot of us… But, I don’t think there are.

It does seem the largest group, by far, is Melee. They’ve done well with the dynamics of the melee attacks, making them user friendly, as opposed to arduous, and too much work chasing down prey. The ranged class actually seems like much more work, across the board, than melee, (which is backwards from what you would think). So that list makes sense to me anyway.

Could you expand on this a bit please? Once in task manager, are you just shutting down GW2? Exiting GW2, and re-logging in seems the only solution so far. In WvW, this often forces you to reenter the queue. (sux)

This is what I know for sure:

1.This “Bug” is posted by others on youtube, so, it seems that it’s the same oscillating tone for everyone.

2. It only occurs for me in WvW.

3. It’s not a weak or slow computer issue. (P8-Z77 V-pro, i7-3770K, 16GB Vengence, SSD, 2-6850’s. …4,150 on the passmark test)

So, is this “soft crash” being caused by a software bug, that Arena Net needs to fix? Or, is it a particular audio driver issue? Or, something unusual, like (reaching a bit) a weird incompatibility with crossfire, or a 5.1 surround issue, causing the crash? (I do have 5.1 surround sound running)

Please further explain deleting the “local.dat” after every big update solution to us “software non-experts”. What are we doing, how do we do it, and why does it fix it??

Why is it only in WvW? It must have something to do with merging 3 servers in one arena. ? Or, just the size of the battles, and sheer number of weapon sounds merging

It happens about 2 or 3 times per playing session for me. I, for one, would really like to know more. Especially, something official from Arena-net. It’s a sucky deal since it happens regularly. If nothing else. …“Yeah, we know, were working on it.” Would be great so that we can quit troubleshooting ghosts.

Interesting thread…

To follow up with what was already posted 2 months ago:

I’d love to know what percentage of level 80 players have actually finished their personal story line? I run with 3 level 80 players regularly, and none of us have done it. That’s 0-3.

I’ve been waiting a couple of months to find a group to do it. Frankly, I’ve lost interest, and so has my son, and others. We are all awaiting new game content, instead of finishing the content that is already here. That’s ludicrous.

Correct me if I am wrong…

First you have to travel to Caer Brier (according to the quest info), or is it Caer Shadowfain which IS in the zone? Then you have to travel to Anchorage. Then, you have to complete 3 unspecified world events that requires dozens of people to complete. And, those world events must be completed within 10 minutes, or you fail.

Then you have to complete a 3 stage assault (also a world event) on the gates of Arah. Then, and only then, the gates will open, briefly, to the level 80 dungeon itself. Then, you quickly have to have a group ready to go before the Pact loses control, and the gates close and you have to start all over.

But, it’s not just any group of 5 players that you need to organize. ….It also has to be a group of 5 level 80 players that are doing it in the STORY mode, not the EXPLORATION mode.

Then, and only then, can you complete your “Personal Story Line”. IF, you can all stay together as a group, if you can all survive, and IF you can finish a 3-5 hour long dungeon, and multiple world events in one playing session?

Nobody has kids? Nobody has a Job? Are their really groups of 5 people that know each other, and can organize to all be there at the same time on the same day, and can play through 4 world events and roll a level 80 dungeon, in one sitting, just to finish a PERSONAL STORY LINE? Really?

Now that some time has passed on this topic…How many of the level 80 players have actually finished their personal story line? Or, how many have given up, and are just waiting for new content, since they can’t finish the personal story line content, that they already have?

(I’d really love to see the actual numbers from Anet….) I would bet that less than 10-20% of all level 80 players have actually finished their “personal story line”.

Personally, IMO, of all the brilliant things in this game. This is just about the dumbest idea I have ever seen in any game. It really needs to be undone, redone, and fixed. This is more like a Legendary Title Event, than a Personal Story Line. It’s content that is just not playable for waaaaay too many people. Hugely disappointing, at best, IMHO.

Fozzik.1742:

The worst thing about bots is that it makes me scared to play like I want to. I’m genuinely worried that if I do certain things in certain areas, or use a certain build or pet or weapon, that I might get reported as a bot and accidentally banned. I’ve put in a huge amount of play time on this game and my characters, and the thought of being one of the unfortunate “false positives” scares the life out of me.

You are not alone. Soooo not alone there.

My mother, who loves the game, because she can play along with her grandson from far away. She loves to play a ranger and collect pets. …She swears she will never use a brown bear ever again. And she has also been accused on in game chat of botting., Which she (we) often do not monitor because she is on Skype with us. (But happened to notice line, after line, after line, of hate and accusation spewing at her, and pointed it out to me.) and that upset her a lot. And me too. You’re hating on a 70 year old woman, who’s proud of herself to be playing a level 80 character with her grandson. And, because she’s not playing like YOU (players with “world completion stars”) they stood accusing her of botting. (A F…. bot to be exact.) …Yes, it’s that out of control.

Myself, I love my Mesmer. Think about this one, if you haven’t already. I use AOE’s to support my many Illusions, Phantasms, and Clones…(I play it similar to an SoS Ritualist in GW I) I also like to use my illusions to my advantage when I’m “just passing through” a tough area. I give the MoB’s a few decoys to fight, instead of getting rooted, and overwhelmed, on my way through. …Anyone coming along behind me sees my “Illusions” with “My name” on them, and sees them fighting on thier own, killing something, and then disappearing…. Guess what? Must be a bot… Look, there he is again, over there. I often wonder if my lonely and left behind illusions and clones are getting reported as bots.

Common sense says: If they are not fighting, they are just AFK, letting the dogs out, and getting an ice cream cone. Right? My illusions are always fighting on their own, and they act like bots. And I’m often far away from them.

It really is scary. As stated by others, many of us have spent years of our casual spare time playing GW and are thrilled to pieces that GW 2 is upon us. The thought of being caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time, by the wrong person, and being wrongly accused is even more upsetting than the bot problem itself. It’s pretty bad when stuff like this is going on.

Props to others here. Lots of good input. Some threads like this deteriorate quickly, it’s nice to see an adult acting, well behaved version of the topic here.

I think everything about this topic is frustrating and discouraging. They have completely overrun my server IMO (Borlis Pass). Bots we’ve reported a month ago are still there.

Even reporting them is frustrating, as you can’t keep track of who you’ve reported. The names make no sense, and there are gobs of them in every area. Did I already report lmabotone, or lnabotone, or lwabotone, or was it Imbbotone?

I think Anet is facing tough issues, but I think making it even more complicated and automated is a really bad idea. Aside from using it as a tip-off for a real GM to take action in game.

I think it’s simpler than that. They are thieves. They are taking loot, tangible or not, and selling it for real money, and hurting the real players, and hurting the game in so many ways.

1. When a report comes in, a live player with a champion level character pops in at the location. “Hi, I’m Jeffery. Where do you see the bots?”. … Over there.

2. The GM hits them with a spell that stuns them for 5 minutes, (preventing them from teleporting as well). The GM quickly finds out what country the account is registered in. The GM uses a large text bubble in front of them, and, sends a PM, in English, and in their native language (software translated), and asks: “Are you at your keyboard?”. Do this twice, maybe even 3 times. And listens to all chat channels from them …If there is no response…

3. Hit them with a spell that turns them into a Pink Flamingo Lawn Ornament that can be killed, and will re-spawn every minute for the next 24 hours. Let everyone that passes by, kill the flamingo, and take 1 random drop from their inventory of stolen goods, every minute until their inventory is empty. Giving back to the economy, that which was stolen. And giving satisfaction to all real players that pass by, that something is being done, and sending a message that you don’t want to get caught botting. Period.

4. On a second occurrence: Do the exact same thing. Only this time, allow the former bot to be targeted every minute, and looted by the honest players in the game, until the entire stolen bank account is empty, gold and all, then close the account. Done.

5. If they do respond to a GM inquiry, (possibly with an automated bot response), the GM can ask a random question that a Bot program can’t answer, but the GM can, and a live player can. “What color is your armor?” “What type of weapon are you holding?” “Why don’t you have armor on?”, “What color is the ocean?” ..Thanks, sorry to bother you, have a great night, here’s a “box of fun” for your time.

No appeals needed. If a “stunned” legitimate live player can’t see a text bubble in front of them asking “if they are at their keyboard, 3 times”. They deserve to get turned into a lawn ornament for 24 hours. And they will learn to respond the next time.

I’ll volunteer for GM duty, and wipe out 48 bots that way in my first four hours. I think most people on this thread would. Pay a bounty to authorized GM deputies., 3 gems per bot. (whatever, just sayin’)

It doesn’t have to be complicated, or covert. It just needs to be addressed promptly, and decisively IMO. Without risk of banning real players. Only live players can really do that IMO.

There’s a lot of servers, and a lot of bots. And legal issues, and…. whatever. But a few good Sheriff’s with a good simple plan of action could do a lot of good, very quickly, and make a lot of people very happy.

Same issues here. Two of us could not get the instance to run. Tried alternating who started it.

After 4 of 5 tries it finally worked. But… It’s broken for some reason.

As you know there are no way points near by. Once you are there together, you want it to run… Please look into a fix.

Same deal tonight…. Twice in a row…

Maybe put some wiggle room in the program logic. Instead of waiting until every last mob is dead, let the next wave spawn when it’s down to 1 or 2 mobs from the previous wave. Then if a mob is stuck under the dirt, it will continue. ???

Knock backs that knock you and/or mobs, out of the playable area seem to be fairly common.

On the other hand, it seems too consistent to be the problem. Unless a mob is spawning in a tree trunk or something.

We got it this time. As others have said. You really have to go slow. You can’t cross the barrier until it’s down. You have to kill everything before you get to it at the 5 way intersection. Don’t cross the barricade until it is down. Then go slow and let all the cinematics and such, move ahead as you go.

I suppose if the first group of researchers don’t follow you, and help you in the cave, start over at that point, because it’s already broken.

It is a fun story line mission, when it works. But, it needs fixing. The barricade should not allow you past it, until you are ready to move ahead. Before it breaks it, and you don’t know it.

Cheers.

Definitely bugged. Just ran this one twice tonight. Can’t move on in the story line. He won’t open the barricade at the Southern Entrance. He just says, guard me from both sides, and then …nothing. Nobody is dead, nobody to retrieve. …You are just stuck, so, you have to start over. It’s a long run just to discover it won’t work again. We read the Wikki, tried things… no help.

It’s busticated.

If crossing a barricade too soon causes the mission to fail, then clearly, it should not be cross-able until it’s OK to proceed.

We’ll try this stuff tomorrow, but, not looking forward to it. Especially since we don’t know what to do, or what will make it work for sure. It might be a long and frustrating day, instead of a fun day…