Guild Wars 2

Well, I don’t know if you played the game when repairing had a cost.

They did an election where one of the candidates offered to nullify the repair cost to the ppl that where fighting for Tyria.

She won, and she honored her word as a polititian, hence she removed the cost of repair.

Sooo I do get you, but lore wise you must understand that it is free to the players that are basically the army, but the NPC that are not part of the army don’t get their armor fixed for free.

So yeah, it is not free, Tyrian government is basically paying for it.

1. There are plenty of “I’m quitting” posts. There are also lots of "I uninstalled the game, but also “after this most recent update, I’m back!” posts.
2. Who would volunteer to close their account? Only those angry at the game or at ANet. That’s a classic situation for “decide in haste; repent at leisure” situations — why would ANet want to create a situation in which people are likely to regret that decision?
3. As stated by others, how much benefit is actually provided to the game beyond that which already exists for the time and trouble ANet would have to go through to enable this?

In short, this is a solution in search of a non-existent problem.

The problem I see with this is that it’s a lot of effort for the player (relative to simply not logging in again) for no benefit to them. And potentially a lot of risk if they ever do change their mind.

Which means most people are unlikely to ever do it.

Think about games you’ve stopped playing – MMOs or otherwise. How many have you consciously thought “I am going to stop playing this game” and then straight away uninstalled it, vs. ones where you simply found yourself playing it less and less until you weren’t playing at all and only thought about that fact when you needed to uninstall it to free up space on your hardrive, or cancel a subscription or whatever?

I bet there’s very, very few in the first category compared to the second.

Sure there’s always posts on this and every other game’s forum from people declaring that they are quitting forever because something has/has not been added/removed/changed/turned pink but the funny thing is many of the people who post those topics actually continue to play. Or at least continue to log in to monitor whether their feedback produces any results since what they’re actually doing is requesting that the thing they don’t like be changed, just under the mistaken assumption that making it a threat will increase the effectiveness.

And even the ones who do mean it and do stop playing at that point are a tiny minority compared to people who just stop. This is why many game forums don’t allow those posts at all and instead use actual info on player activity to gauge not only how many people are playing but what they’re doing and what may have caused them to stop.

Chyanne Waters.8719:

Ayrilana.1396
What point does deleting the account do?

Deleting accounts will free up space on the servers it will also free up character names that others can use.

All previously used names become available to everyone after 24 hours since the character was deleted.

I doubt the account really ties up that many resources and especially for those who would even use the feature.

penelopehannibal.8947:

Behellagh.1468:

If an account has been terminated, then maybe … but that’s like the only case. And since I would guess most terminated accounts are gold seller advertisers with names like ljhafdshdsf, I don’t think anybody is waiting for that one.

I was so annoyed the other day when I wanted to have the name Gfghifasdk but that was taken, so I had to use an accented í instead.

You could have added a title you know, like Gfghifasdk Teh Goldseller.

Behellagh.1468:

If an account has been terminated, then maybe … but that’s like the only case. And since I would guess most terminated accounts are gold seller advertisers with names like ljhafdshdsf, I don’t think anybody is waiting for that one.

I was so annoyed the other day when I wanted to have the name Gfghifasdk but that was taken, so I had to use an accented í instead.

I thought it was quite clear: a valid account is one which has not been banned or otherwise deleted.

One important factor I don’t think you’re taking into consideration is that character names are very important to some people.

For me the name is a defining part of the character. One of them I’ve used in every western RPG I’ve played for the past 16 years, including MMOs. Others I make up specifically for a character and I spend a lot of time finding something appropriate.

To me suggesting that character names could be removed after the character has been created is like suggesting their appearance or race and profession could be randomized. It would destroy a character I spent a lot of time creating.

Like a lot of people I also take breaks from games periodically. Either for real-life things or simply because I want to play other games.

If I came back to a game after a break, even one I really enjoyed and had expected to keep playing for months or years, to find that all my character names had been removed because I didn’t meet some quota for logging in I would never play that game again. I would also warn all my friends to avoid it because I know they would be as upset at having their characters destroyed as I would be. (I would quite like to be able to request a refund but I assume I wouldn’t be eligible since my purchase would have to have been several months earlier.)

But thankfully that’s not something I, or anyone else, has to worry about with Guild Wars 2 (or GW1) because as Gaile said in that post you quoted it’s not something Anet will ever do.

Absolutely every one-word name is not taken. After reading a thread like this one just last week, I thought I’d try making a character (I make approximately 2 characters per week, and very rarely use the same names each week) with a one-word name (I usually use two-word names, having played GW1 for many years). Took only 2 tries to get a name accepted. All I did was change the first letter on an Asura-appropriate double-consonant name.

Truly, one need only use their imagination.

Esquilax.3491:

Naming a character is currently horrendous. I don’t RP at all, so I dislike names that are essentially titles like X of/the Y. I don’t want to randomly make up a surname like X Y because the surname bares no significance to me. I just want to be known as X. Every single one word name has been taken. Every last one, including versions that substitute or add a letter here or there in an attempt to compromise.

I can absolutely guarantee they’re not all taken.

I recently made 2 new characters with 1 word names: Ambage and Aurhedryn. As I mentioned in my last post I tried a few variations and found those were free too.

Others I’ve used recently include Necrodent (asura necro) Vanirar, and various random things like Amberlile (if it’s a very temporary character and the name doesn’t matter I’ll just type whatever looks vaguely name like).

If you want a particular name or word a useful ‘trick’ can be to try languages other than English. I like using Welsh, Latin and Quenya but that’s just because I usually like how they look. There are free online translators and dictionaries for pretty much every language out there (both real and fictional) and lots of name sites that will tell you what that name is, or similar names, in other languages.

The thing is it’s really not that difficult to come up with available names, even lore appropriate ones.

I make new characters on a regular basis and the only times I’ve not been able to get the name I wanted it was because I was copying it from somewhere else, because it was something silly and obvious (like Already In Use) or once when I wanted to call an asura Xixxi. Even then I only needed to make a slight variation to the name to get it.

(I think the hardest was Kvothe. That guy has a lot of titles, nicknames etc. and they were all taken, or too long. But then I decided being unable to make him both a mesmer and an engineer was more annoying and went for a different theme instead.)

One thing I do think would be helpful, but maybe not worth the effort it would take, is if the game could tell you the name belongs to a character who has been deleted and may be available in 24 hours. (The game keeps names reserved for 24 hours after the character is deleted so people can delete and re-make them without risking the name.)

I make a lot of temporary characters and sometimes make several with different variations on a name I like to see how it looks in-game, what people shorten it to when talking to me etc. and I sometimes think it would be really unfortunate if someone was trying to use a name I’ve got but I’m not going to keep and they have no way to know it’ll be free tomorrow.

Unrelenting pressure! I know, right? Just the other day, I was doing the Auric Basin meta when suddenly, I was kicked out of the map and FORCED to do the Not So Secret jumping puzzle. Nobody on the map could do it, so we couldn’t get back to Tarir in time to save it. Mordremoth then showed up on my game over screen and said “guess you should have jumped better, Mario! Princess Peach is now forever in my castle!”

C’mon Anet, stop pressuring me to do JPs.

Considering how many posts and threads I’ve read that start out with, “I’m coming back to the game after not playing for months/years/since launch,” how does one decide an account is truly inactive? And how many of these would have come back if they logged on to find all their chars needed to be renamed and their char names taken by others.

But I can guarantee one thing. There would be an unending stream of rant posts on the forums from those who lose names after an absence.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Swagger.1459:

I would like to suggest that a name purge happen so we can free up names from inactive accounts.

Thoughts?

This topic comes up every so often. ANet’s made the same comment multiple times:

• There is no such thing as an “inactive account” — players might come back at any time. We’d hate for people to return only to find out that we took those from them.
• Nor does it make sense to release names on banned accounts — we don’t want players to start a new account and avoid some of their punishment by having access to their old names.

That’s even without talking about the expense of identifying which accounts would count for a purge or the effort spent explaining to people why they lost their names or fixing mistakes.

Finally, why should ANet do this? The only reason any of us wants these names freed up is if we lack the creativity to create other names. Releasing more names isn’t going to make that job easier: it will still be first-come, first-served, so only a few people will benefit from this undertaking.

In short, this is too much work to cater to the minority of players who don’t want to spend a little more time figuring out a name.

Not only that, but some banned accounts may have character names that were well known trouble makers. It could create a case of mistaken identity where someone who recognizes the name might think it’s the same person that got unbanned, and end up harassing the player.

There have been times where I tried a few names that turned out to be taken, but I always manage to come up with a name I like. It isn’t hard if you put some thought into it.

Personally I don’t create names that reference pop culture of any kind because it makes me feel unoriginal. I also don’t make my characters look like something from pop culture, like a particular character from an anime. (“Cosplay” creeps me out actually)

I always wonder what name people wish they had when these topics come up! Usually it’s something like Gandalf or John Snow (why people are wanting to name their character after a British newsreader I’ll never know, but it seems popular!) or something combined from other franchises.

The system is fine as it is. There are literally billions of combinations of letters and spaces you can use to come up with an original name!

They won’t do it. But I do have a question for the OP:

What is considered inactive?

To me, the only account that can be considered inactive is ones where the players had Anet refund something on it and were closed.

I personally don’t consider banned accounts inactive. Those names should stay locked.

Swagger.1459:

I would like to suggest that a name purge happen so we can free up names from inactive accounts.

Thoughts?

This topic comes up every so often. ANet’s made the same comment multiple times:

• There is no such thing as an “inactive account” — players might come back at any time. We’d hate for people to return only to find out that we took those from them.
• Nor does it make sense to release names on banned accounts — we don’t want players to start a new account and avoid some of their punishment by having access to their old names.

That’s even without talking about the expense of identifying which accounts would count for a purge or the effort spent explaining to people why they lost their names or fixing mistakes.

Finally, why should ANet do this? The only reason any of us wants these names freed up is if we lack the creativity to create other names. Releasing more names isn’t going to make that job easier: it will still be first-come, first-served, so only a few people will benefit from this undertaking.

In short, this is too much work to cater to the minority of players who don’t want to spend a little more time figuring out a name.

Thoughts? This won’t end well. This has been suggested before and it just angers people every time.

Also Anet have stated, repeatedly, that it won’t happen. One of the selling points of the game is that you can come and go as you like. If you can have your names stripped because some random decided you don’t log in enough that’s gone and, as I said a lot of people would be angry.

From another perspective, HoT is hard, until you learn how to handle different mobs/situations. Then it becomes a doable-but-healthy challenge.

Just speaking about raptors in particular, they were surprising at first, but they have low HP individually, which makes them very susceptible to AoE damage. If I’m not careful, they might down me, but I can usually res once or even twice in the same fight by killing individual raptors. It helps to keep moving, too, since their attack pattern works best when you’re surrounded.

The number of group-required hero points can be frustrating, since you can’t tell they require a group until you’re there in person. I recommend trying to find a hero point train, where a commander will lead a group of people through all the hero points in a map. You might not be able to get to all of them, depending on which masteries you have, but you’ll have enough people to do the events. If no one is advertising one in map chat, try using the LFG tool, and if no one is advertising one there, just start your own group with a message like “Trying to do hero points, would appreciate any help!”

HoT is tough for open-world PvE, but you can definitely improve over time with it. Good luck!

Raptors first surprise killed my mesmer too. Then I learned. It was only once.

Had some trouble with Revenant at start too (still learning the class). Now I laugh in the face of the raptors, can take down whole group in 3 hits and they’re not touching me.

And those sniper ninja frogs, yeah, those guys. Just had to learn their attack patterns and not ignore them. They’re pleasure to kill now.

Want to hear the harsh truth? The vanilla game made us too lazy and bad. You can’t just brainlessly aa every mob anymore to win. You actually have to press some other buttons and time some stuff now. Ever played any other mmo? Not all of them have the nice big red aoe indicators that GW2 has. Yeah, even in the jungle, HoT is not hard. It’s not braindead easy anymore (what part of original open world game was hard?) but it sure ain’t hard.

Legendofzelda.1278:

One way to make it good for all is make it so all races/classes can learn all racial skills. make it into an almost quest or something learning the skills other races have. Then they can be made good skills with no worries.
So as to not make it too much for utility slots you can only equip one set of racial skills at a time or something.

Yeah that’s how it is in GW1. With acquisition by gaining faction or being able to go to an outpost and buy it from a trainer or doing a quest or questline or a mission and the skill is the part of the reward.

The gem price (understandably) jumped when the chaos gloves landed but I expected it to drop away again. Not sure it reflects gold inflation as much as Anet selling desirable stuff in the shop. Anyhow what’s bad news for [gold → gem] folks is good news for [$$$ → gem → gold] folks.

people can farm 20g/hour in the silverwastes… i doubt dungeons and dailies are responsible for inflation…

i bet one of the main reasons is the huge influx of returning players who dumped their gold into the TP to get the new things

New patch, big patch.
Players return.
Need to adjust gear.
Want stuff fast.
Buy of TP.
Demand increases.
Prices increase.

Just my tuppence.

Jumpin Lumpix.6108:

I’ve notice that since they’ve revised dungeon rewards to increase the gold received and added a 2g reward to the dailies that the price of almost everything on the TP has gone through the roof. Legendaries are way up from what they were before as are regular crafting materials.

I’ve also noticed gem prices at a steadily increasing high over the past week, it’s now at 25g + for 100 gems.

Any form of a gold sink coming out anytime soon or can we expect prices to go into the stratosphere?

They have added a few things to the gem store as of late, plus all the mini pets, gem prices where always going to go up. Dungeons and the gold from daily achievements are not to blame. With the announcement of no more new legendary the old ones are the only ones, for a lot of them. So there prices where going to go up as the people who where holding on to gold now spend it.

Completely ignores that mats went up at the update because that’s when a new legendary dropped and that gems probably went up because they released another wing set and every stand alone mini that was in the store was just retired for now and they brought back every one of the baby animals…

Can’t lie to you, I trust ArenaNet writers. Sometimes the focus go amiss, but they have such potential for side stories, it just feels like they have yet to unlock all their creativity, and I personally found them to be pretty good at smaller stories/tales. It’s also a way for them to sharpen their story-telling.

Dante.1508:

Been asked since release, nothing ever gets added, i wouldn’t hold your breath op.

It’s very expensive to add a new race compared to adding a new profession or new zones. ANet would have to add:

• 22 new personal stories.
• Update all other personal stories based on changes that races have on the dialogue.
• A new home city (and, in theory, at least one new ‘home’ zone, comparable to Queensdale).
• Create new race-specific dialogue for a variety of situations.
• Hire voice actors for all the personal stories, LS2, HoT story, and skill/idle remarks, plus be prepared to rehire them all for LS3 and beyond.
• Create nine sets of new cultural armor.
• Update various achievements (or add new ones), for which race matters.
• Update every single armor in the game to work with the new race.
• Probably two dozen other things that other folks will think of off the top of their head, not to mention dozens of other things we don’t even know about.

tl;dr there’s a reason that ANet isn’t likely to deliver a new race, short of making them the focus of an expansion.

Tiger Ashante.1792:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

What happened to play “our” way?

allowing us to “play how we want”

Is this phrase still being banded about whenever people don’t like a certain piece of content?

I get that people don’t like certain parts of the game, but everyone is different in their likes and dislikes. I have to applaud ArenaNet on having multiple uses for the same piece of content, however. One of the hardest things I thought they’d be able to pull off would be to keep the lower level areas of the game populated, yet here we are nearly four years on and you can wander around any zone and see people playing in it – for a whole variety of reasons. Some are levelling, some are going back to do world completion, some are going back again to do core achievements, and some are going back yet again to fill out collections.

The issue here though is Jumping Puzzles. I don’t think ArenaNet can be criticised for encouraging PvE players for going into different features of core PvE in order to gain specific rewards. They set the rules. No amount of “play how you want” can convince me that making as much of the game replayable as possible is a bad thing. Notwithstanding that, “play how you want” was about four years ago, and if I remember right, mainly referred to the method at which you levelled and progressed your character, and not necessarily referred to the acquisition of shiny loot.

DoctorDing.5890:

Platforming does not belong in an RPG imo.

Having to make one difficult jump or scramble up a tricky steep hill to get somewhere is fine. Having to do 20 difficult jumps in a row, where any error sends you back to the start is not OK.

I do the daily JP if it it is portal-able.

Incidentally, picking up on something in an earlier post, my main is a Norn. Are they harder than other races when jumping? I have dreadful problems with the camera angles.

That’s a good point – I wonder if it’s because Norn’s are, generally, taller than other races so the camera angle makes it difficult to judge jumps?

If I do have to jump something – not necessarily a JP – I really hate it when something obscures your view, like a tree. I suppose I could go 1st person but I don’t like that anymore – it’s like going back to EQ2

Maybe I’m the odd one out but I never feel pressure to do any of the dailies. Even though I know the PvP ones are extremely quick and easy to get I never do them because I don’t like PvP.

I’ll look at the list and if there’s 3 I feel like doing, or I’ve done 1 or 2 and there’s a 3rd I want to do then I’ll do it. If not there’s always tomorrow.

And the jumping puzzles are some of the ones I actually enjoy doing (without a portal). I know not everyone likes them but considering I know for a fact 1/3 of the list, every single day, will be things I don’t enjoy I appreciate the opportunity for something I do like.