Guild Wars 2

Zeivu.3615:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

The reason you can’t give away the Core game is that purchasing Heart of Thorns only provides one Serial Key. You can use that key to create a new account, or use the key to ‘upgrade’ an existing account.

It’s perfectly fine to give away a Serial Key that has not been registered; it’s not against the ToS.

It’s not against the rules, but it isn’t necessarily a good idea to buy the code from a third-party. Unless you buy an unopened, physical copy or get it from Steam, there really isn’t a way to find out if the code was used or not until you enter it.

Who said anything about purchasing from a third-party? A Serial Key is sent from ArenaNet to anyone purchasing through the official game site.

it would be cool if Anet was doing this on purpose and the Blood stone magic is breaking down reality in the game world.

Duo Queue in PvP then, easy to carry your teams. Presuming you are good at the game and not terrible.

Also 30k AP must be like over 4000 hours (no judgement) so I’d say you had a good run in the game considering it was never designed to have a constant grind that was mandatory.

I’m a couple of hundred points from 30k, but I still have plenty I haven’t done. That’s because I don’t consume content as fast as I can. Mostly though, what keeps me going is my guild.

Since I like playing with them, doesn’t really matter much what I’m doing.

Everyone who has 30k AP has played thousands of hours (5k and up). What do you expect? Just play a another game and come back if there’s something new to do.

Yes. I don’t.

I take time off an enjoy other things; GW2 is perfectly designed for that style of consumption. Come back whenever you wish.

Pro tip: even if there wasn’t a new currency, you would have to farm something to get the loot..

musu.9205:

Yargesh.4965:

They did not have different currencies in the core Tyria and people constantly asked for specific currencies. They wanted Teq weapons, they wanted wurm ascended and so on. So frankly it was players who kept demanding various currencies that led to them implementing (I agree too many different ones) currencies to everything now.

i agree that players want specific currencies as in the past you can buy anything with gold ,but right now it seems too much ,new players hardly catch up while vets feel too grindy .

and it is certainly a way anet tried to keep map popular .a forced way like any other mmo on the market .

What’s the right balance then?

• People hate on RNG: “it’s not fair if your luck is bad” (and people tend to think their own luck is worse than average)
• People hate on gold alone: “you shouldn’t just be able to farm with a credit card”
• People hate on tokens: “ANet just wants to sell more inventory upgrades”
• People hate on map currencies: “stop adding new currencies”
• People hate on collections: “it’s too much running around and the same for everyone — what happened to freedom to play as you like?”

Each mechanic that MMOs use has pluses and minuses. Everyone has their own preferences, so no single tool is going to be appreciated by each and every player.

How would you balance all the different methods of earning loot so that most people are happy and very few are deeply unhappy?

They did not have different currencies in the core Tyria and people constantly asked for specific currencies. They wanted Teq weapons, they wanted wurm ascended and so on. So frankly it was players who kept demanding various currencies that led to them implementing (I agree too many different ones) currencies to everything now.

Zeivu.3615:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

The reason you can’t give away the Core game is that purchasing Heart of Thorns only provides one Serial Key. You can use that key to create a new account, or use the key to ‘upgrade’ an existing account.

It’s perfectly fine to give away a Serial Key that has not been registered; it’s not against the ToS.

It’s not against the rules, but it isn’t necessarily a good idea to buy the code from a third-party. Unless you buy an unopened, physical copy or get it from Steam, there really isn’t a way to find out if the code was used or not until you enter it.

Steam doesn’t sell Guild Wars 2.

Tenken.7342:

To a river so deep…

.. I must be looking for something

I once tried to use a very obscure name from Greek mythology and was shocked to find it taken in a variety of forms. Then a guildie told me it was the name of a well-known world boss in a popular game I don’t play… which explained it.
I definitely try for ‘unique’ names, but it doesn’t keep me awake at night.

anx.7549:

Oh and I meant to ask as an aside – have you ever considered paying for it – the name that you did/do want?

I have considered making characters to sell their names because I’ve played TERA, and in that game, the name-selling business actually exists.
But then I thought about how no one in GW2 does it (publicly?) and I compared the communities of the two games.
If you peek into TERA forums… Don’t look. It’s so horrible. I’m not saying all of the players are horrible. Just most of the forums and feedback is >.>" i could totally go on a tangent talking about this. But anyway…
I think a reason that GW2 doesn’t have a name-selling business is because GW2 knows how to keep it friendly. You could easily hurt someone by listening to someone talking about their next rp character and then sniping that name and demanding payment to free the name. Then there’s always the problem of the name being sniped by a third party or the claim that it was sniped after the seller recieves payment and then things just go so wrong…
So. To sum up my awkward rant. I don’t think anyone should purposefully try to start up a name-selling business in GW2. If someone does PM you asking to buy your name and you were about to delete your character anyway, then by all means take the deal. If you want someone else’s name, ask them. Kindly. But i don’t want another game where map chat is filled with “Selling name. Bidding starts now” and all the greed and salt that goes with that bidding.

So now that i’ve answered your aside-question, i should probably answer your main question.
I personally make up my character’s name when i’m actually on the naming screen. I fit the name to how i customized that character just then using the previous screens (it fits in my head. Probably no one else’s <.<). My names sound like actual (first) names though, so they’re usually taken. I just end up having fun making up all these variations of the original named i wanted until one of them finally goes through. I end up with funky things like Quena >.>" if it means something in a show or another language, i wouldn’t know. I usually google to make sure nothing bad comes up xD

Arnox.5128:

So with two factor authentication, how exactly are accounts getting stolen? Or are you guys saying there are still a lot of people that don’t have that yet?

Besides stealing accounts from other players, there are also accounts purchased with stolen credit card information.Those can be shut down once the fraud is discovered, but by then the thieves have already been reported for gold selling anyway.

F2P accounts, on the other hand, have enough restrictions on chat that I can’t see them as part of the problem. None of the people who whisper-spam you are F2P accounts, since you have to be mutual friends with a F2P account to get their whispers.

Arnox.5128:

So with two factor authentication, how exactly are accounts getting stolen? Or are you guys saying there are still a lot of people that don’t have that yet?

Fraud is where most of the accounts come from, but many people don’t have 2F Authentication or other security measures on their email accounts.

tolunart.2095:

Who is “we?” Are you planning to buy the company?

I was soo thinking this lol

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

I wonder if replacing AP for dailies with AP for time spent logged into the game would be an improvement? (I’m not sure if it’s a good idea or bad idea yet, mind you, but maybe something worth exploring anyway)

This would reward AFK farmers and botters with a constant stream of APs (and the chest rewards that come with them) while punishing those who have jobs and lives IRL so they only log in for an hour or two here and there.

Although the current system isn’t perfect, the reverse is true – Dailies give a little boost of karma, gold and XP to players who spend a short time doing them, while botting or being AFK all day does nothing to advance them.

Oh look, a zombie thread. Mod will be a along with a rifle soone. Boom! Headshot.

In the meantime, the problem isn’t the cap on AP, as such, it’s the importance players place on the number. You can get AP by running around harvesting nodes and viewing vistas every day. You can get AP by buying skins off the TP (collections) and salvaging them (Agent of Entropy). How does any of this translate into being better at the game than someone who does none of these things but runs dungeons or PvPs constantly?

I remember threads about dungeon runners won’t take PUG players with less than x,000 AP. And players who felt compelled to do every single daily every single day because they couldn’t bear to leave a single AP unclaimed. And then complain because they couldn’t go back to get missed AP from past events.

Without a cap/restrictions that attitude of “bigger number means better player” and the compulsion to do everything that gives AP just gets worse. Imagine playing for a year or two, learning everything you can about how to play a chosen class, but being rejected from a raid because you have less than 100,000 AP. Especially when 50,000 of it comes from doing the daily every single day.

The numbers mean nothing, but it tickles the psychological buttons of certain players. Other than the chat/forum rage of those players, nothing would be lost by removing it from the game.

Achievement points aren’t capped — just certain repeatable sources are capped, notably dailies.

I’m not sure anyone would have minded, except that during large parts of 2015 & 2016, we have had no new sources, whereas in 2012-2013, we had tons. The Long Content Drought caused a lot of issues, directly and indirectly.

Here’s what I’d like to see as a compromise: the cap on dailies should be adjusted upwards so that there’s also a ‘floor’ on the minimum number of points added. For example, any year that the total number of new AP was under 7,500, ANet would increase the daily cap by a few thousand (the amount depending on how far under the ‘floor’). (I used ‘7,500’ since that represents 30,000 points in four years — the amount a completionist might have gotten if they began playing during Headstart.)

The Shiverpeaks were cold (thus the name) even during GW1, before the dragons began reawakening, so it’s a safe bet that he’s just making the far north even colder than it already was.

It was funny reading chat after 1 of the creatures died tonight. The same thing everytime, they pinged the mask and typed FINALLY!

It’s the first day! I got 4 of the creatures in 5 hours and if I’d gotten the 5th, I wouldn’t have retorted with “Finally”, because 5 hours isn’t that long in the grand scheme of things.

DGraves.3720:

Crossbows < Firearms

Not going to happen.

Bows already don’t make sense.

In the modern day they are.

Crude firearms like those represented in GW2 were way worse for small parties than comparable crossbows at the time. Firearms took off because of their power at range, which in a battlefield setting, was a massive advantage over traditional ranged weapons, which either struggled with armor (archery) or had problems in even brief storms like more traditional high-impact crossbows.

Since a firing squad could spread about as much devastation over a large area as an organized unit of crossbowman could do (albeit with more precision), and in many cases hit from a further range, all while using less resources (bullets were just scraps of lead for the most part), and not having to worry as much as some rain causing the weapons to lose function even days later, it was a very approachable method of fighting and increasing the odds of winning.

However, in smaller skirmishes, a crossbow (not even of the kind used in sieges and battles) would be undeniably more useful, especially if the wielder got the jump on his target, as its relative quietness and compactness (no need to stand up with a 60"+ longbow) would allow for much more tactical use.

It’s a fantasy game, anyways. You could argue that the advent of guns capable of a firing rate even of once per second would nullify the entire purpose of melee weapons, and that the entire concept of the oversized “greatsword” never really even existed, historically. The closest is the zweihander, and those aren’t even close in size to much of GW2’s options.

Plus, magic would probably nullify all use of really any weapons advancement. I mean you’ve seen what Countess Anise and Kasmeer can do, right?

I would like to see the next weapon added be Crossbows. They have a style and feel that is unique. They could fill a nice role of a slow firing long range heavy hitting weapon and fit with professions that don’t use the longbow (mainly Thief comes to mind where it would be a great fit).

We see Ballistae in the world so the technology is there from a lore standpoint.

Ideally I would like to see the next advanced trait line for Thieves be a sniper spec that uses Crossbows and Rifles. I’d love to see Rangers get access to them as well. One my favorite Pathfinder characters was a Dwarven Ranger using a Crossbow and Axes.

As others have said, free accounts cannot be sending you mail or bothering you in /map chat. Gold sellers will remain a fixture in this game (as well as others) as long as there’s a mechanic for trading coin/items/both and players are willing to buy gold/account-buffs on the black market.

The best ANet (or any other company) can do is to reduce the direct impact on the community and, for the most part, ANet does a pretty good job of that.

Even if they weren’t heavily restricted to the point where gold sellers wouldn’t want to use them much anyway, removing free-to-play is never going to go over well. Its pretty much a “Pandora’s box” situation, once you add it you can’t ever take it away without getting a huge backlash.

Arnox.5128:

It seems like it’s doing more harm than good, what with all the gold sellers and etc.

If we do get rid of them though, anyone who already had a free account should definitely be grandfathered in for obvious reasons. They should be the only ones allowed now to have a free account.

So what do you guys think? Are free accounts worth this?

EDIT: Another option is to limit them a lot more or at least in a different way as to completely deny making trash accounts such as removing all abilities to trade with any others except, of course, NPCs.

EDIT 2: Yet another option is to remove the level cap and area restrictions but to disallow free accounts from chatting completely. No WTS channel even. Maybe only whispering to friends will be enabled.

“Play for free” is not going anywhere… Last year it doubled monthly concurrency rates to an estimated 3.1m players.

Good sellers are being dealt with and we won’t die getting the occasional messages.

Fishae.2503:

every other game where theres some sort of premium for ingame currency trading dictated by players, the prices are never far off gold sellers prices, so theres little incentive to go to them, but gw2… i want to buy gold, but the rate comparison is extremely off putting

That’s because the market rate is automated, not controlled by Anet. There would be much worse problems in the game if they set the rates.

The claims that Anet “does nothing” are false. I’ve read the Support forum for years and there has been a constant stream of “my account was falsely banned for gold-selling, please reconsider” messages. They used to post a brief response to each ticket # – sometimes it was legit, someone got banned by mistake for sending a friend a few hundred gold to finish a Legendary or something, and the ban was overturned after a review.

But often the messages were posted by gold sellers who didn’t want to abandon the account and start over, and the response was “ban is legit, and will stand.” You can see by the ticket #s that only a tiny percentage of tickets received were disputed or otherwise mentioned in the forums, so for every ban mentioned there hundreds if not thousands of others were undisputed or upheld without being posted.

Clearing out these accounts are expensive for Anet – customer support costs money, the manpower used tracking and banning them costs money, chargebacks from accounts and gems bought with stolen accounts cost money, and players who buy from gold sellers cost money in lost revenue. So it is within Anet’s best interest to use the most effective methods to control them. If any of these suggestions had already been considered and were better than current methods – and these suggestions are either basic common sense or have been tried in the past – then they would be in use by now.

Why should gold sellers use f2p accounts with all their restrictions on map chat, whisper chat, email trade, the trading post, and on what maps they can reach, when they can use bank or credit card fraud to buy accounts with no restrictions and stick ANet with the bill when the charges are reversed (and any fines from Anet’s financial insurance if ANet has too many reversed charges).

They undoubtedly do use some f2p accounts, but stolen paid for accounts are probably their first choice when they can get them.

I’m sure there are a lot of RMT free accounts about but none of those pose a huge threat to anything such as annoying whisper spam. Although if you grandfathered in those accounts we would have a much bigger problem as a result. So nope.