Guild Wars 2

Something that GW1 and the original GW2 release had in common was enormous amounts of useless land. GW1 had some maps that were so useless you had to go out of your way into a dead end map just to see some random grass. And that’s awesome. There is a great joy in just running around in new land that you haven’t seen before, maybe fighting some indigenous animal that you haven’t run into before (pinipals!). And you find that hidden little cave with a champ guarding a chest and there isn’t even a PoI. Or that waterfall at the very center of the spiral in The Falls in GW1. No point at all, but insanely awesome.

I understand the desire to concentrate players on the new maps, and pack them full of crazy amounts of content, but people are going to go to that content no matter what. Imagine if HoT had the 4 (now 5) maps we have as the “real maps” and there were also 10 junk maps that were just there for fun with some random events and perhaps even some hearts. No effort put into making them polished, just something to explore in between doing the “real” content.

Anet seemed to brush aside the criticism that HoT was too small, and not having useless maps is definitely part of that.

That’s what I’d like to see anyway. More crap.

Djinn.9245:

While I see your point regarding the rollback vs. another type of recovery of an entire account, I don’t agree that its better for anyone but Anet’s bottom line.

It would certainly be better for the players to have those options in dealing with account restorations. But it would probably lead to support responses being more delayed. Anet’s bottom line is definitely a factor in decisions like this. They’re a company and exist to make money, so they aren’t able to do every little thing that is better for their customers.

I think offering item replacement for accidental deletion/allowing someone access your account shouldn’t be a problem support deals with. I prefer resources going to the game itself and giving better support for technical/security/billing/etc problems, not wasting time/money babysitting careless people.

Djinn.9245:

If everything including the character was deleted, that would be a different situation than the one this thread is discussing, which is what I’m basing my opinion on.

And yes, not having tools to give items to characters is intentional because most of the MMOs I’ve played (almost ALL the triple-A western MMOs) are able to return items that players accidentally lost.

This situation is very atypical. Practically all account theft is done to siphon every last bit of value out of the account, and use it for botting/supporting other bot accounts. Spending time developing tools to deal with fringe cases just isn’t a good use of resources.

On top of that, rolling back to a previous state is likely much easier (and less likely to cause problems) than attempting to merge a current state with an older snapshot. In GW2, what would happen with an ascended weapon that was left on the account and had recently been stat-swapped? The older snapshot would have a different weapon listed, as the forge consumes it and gives you a new item, so you would then have an extra weapon you aren’t supposed to own. I don’t how item IDs are tracked, but even swapping runes/sigils on a piece of equipment might create copies in a such a merger if the items don’t have unique identifiers attached to them.

The account recovery option for both games was also very specific in its purpose being only for restoring stolen accounts. It’s a rather reasonable policy, as offering rollback (or the item replacement you’re wanting) opens up the flood gates on support tickets for player mistakes, “my bother did it”, “I was drunk”, or whatever other reasons players might file reports over. It would be nice to see options like that, but there are reasons for them not being available.

Djinn.9245:

If they have a snapshot of my account, they can look at it and give me back anything that is missing. Or they can rollback my account to some time before my account was hacked which causes me to lose anything between that time and when my account was hacked. The first option returns more. So yes, a rollback would cause me to lose more than just returning what was lost.

You’re talking about the same thing. They can “roll back” the account to the most recent snapshot (not the last time you logged in, it doesn’t work like that) upon request, with specific requirements. They may have changed the policy recently (and appear to have developed new restoration tools) but for most of GW2’s lifetime they refused rollbacks for accidental deletions or if your account was accessed by someone else using your computer (the “my brother did it” defense). If your account was accessed by someone from a different IP address they could offer a rollback to the most recent snapshot.

I don’t know how often they save these snapshots but if your account was hacked today (August 6) the most recent snapshot may be from June 6, meaning you will lose everything you did in the last two months but regain whatever you had in June. That is usually a better option than being left with one toon standing there in his underwear.

Djinn.9245:

mrstealth.6701:

Djinn.9245:

I have heard many storied like this and it does affect my view on playing GW2 also. I have been considering buying more gems but this is one reason why I am having trouble making that decision. Why spend real money on a game when things like this can happen?

One thing I want to know is why Anet refused to replace items when stuff like this happened. I also heard a story of a player that was banned for trying to get his own account back.

Guild Wars had an account recovery/rollback option added in late 2011, which is a feature that carried over to GW2. They can restore your account back to one of its recent snapshotted states. It will likely result in some progress loss, as the rollback will revert to some time shortly before the account was lost. But it’s still much better to lose a few days/weeks, than to lose everything you have earned.

I wouldn’t want my entire account rolled-back because someone else stole my account. That’s a terrible idea unless they can roll it back to exactly the time the account was stolen (i.e. I don’t lose anything). If they have a snapshot of my account, they should replace anything I lost, not force me to lose EVEN MORE!

You’re not losing more, you’re recovering all but the most recent earnings. The rollback is to a point before the account was stolen and items lost. The only loss would be things earned between the time the last snapshot was taken and when the account was lost.

example
I have 1000g
Account snapshot is taken
I get a rare weapon drop and sell it for 200g
I have 1200g now
My account is stolen, with all items/character lost
I recover the account and have it rolled back to the last snapshot
I have all 1000g (and all other characters/items at the time the snapshot was taken)

It’s not the ideal system, but it allows for an almost complete recovery without being an unreasonable technical burden. Maintaining near-live snapshots would be better, but it would also be a massive drain on server resources and data storage space.

Elyssandariel.2679:

Uhhh……my opinion can’t be “wrong.” It’s an opinion I could say your opinion is wrong, just the same way, if opinions could be wrong. But they can’t.

Incorrect. Just because someone has an opinion doesn’t give that opinion special protected status.

If your opinion is something like, “vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate” where it’s subjective then it’s neither correct nor incorrect. However an opinion where part or all of the opinion is based on false facts will mean the opinion is also false.

A hacker is bad because he broke the law. He deliberately hurt another person by handing out items special to her to strangers, which she may never get back. The CS person might have made errors, but that’s not the same as breaking a law. Therefore the hacker is bad and the CS person is not.

Elyssandariel.2679:

I wouldn’t say that the hacker is “bad” or that the CS person is “bad” either. According to the social engineer hacker on Redditt, it only took ONE time of trying, all the information was fake that he gave, and it was a GM’s account to boot. Not “He kept trying till one of our CS agents wasn’t so strict.” He tried ONE time, and got in. On a GM’s account. Not the multiple times that Anet is claiming it took. He had the ticket up and everything before the mods told him to take it down. If -I- were ANET I would want people to think it took multiple times too, to save face, but, according to the person who did this, who has absolutely nothing to lose by telling the truth, it only took one time.

The CS agent doesn’t need to be fired over this. He/she needs to be trained a bit more, along with all the rest of the CS agents, and ANET needs to pay attention when people tell them “yeah…you might wanna pay attention to this security break you have.”

The giving away of the frogs is not a big deal, she’s a GM and if someone had the code to make those frogs in the first place, they can make them again. She lost very little of value apart from the frogs, which, as I said, someone can just make for her again. There have been people offering to reimburse her the things she lost, which is very kind of them, and if I had anything of value in GW1 I would do the same. Gaile was basically just a high-profile name that would attract attention and that’s why her account was the one that got “hacked.”

The hacker only posted the successful attempt. ANet has come out and said that the hacker attempted multiple times.

He does have things to lose if he posts every attempt if his goal is to show quick and easy it is. One attempt shows a lot quicker and easier than several attempts.

Personally, given what the hacker did AFTER gaining access makes me give zero credibility to what he says. If there was not any evidence from players affected by what the hacker did and ANet’s statement in response to it, I’d say he made it up.

Personally, I trust ANet with regards to this. ANet had more to lose reputation wise by saying it took multiple tries. Reaching the CS agent who didn’t follow the rules on what’s acceptable as proof of ownership the first attempt is a lot better than not following the rules AND there not being any flags on the account or the CS agent also not noticing the flags on top of not following the rules.

Elyssandariel.2679:

I wouldn’t say that the hacker is “bad” or that the CS person is “bad” either. According to the social engineer hacker on Redditt, it only took ONE time of trying, all the information was fake that he gave, and it was a GM’s account to boot. Not “He kept trying till one of our CS agents wasn’t so strict.” He tried ONE time, and got in. On a GM’s account. Not the multiple times that Anet is claiming it took. He had the ticket up and everything before the mods told him to take it down. If -I- were ANET I would want people to think it took multiple times too, to save face, but, according to the person who did this, who has absolutely nothing to lose by telling the truth, it only took one time.

The CS agent doesn’t need to be fired over this. He/she needs to be trained a bit more, along with all the rest of the CS agents, and ANET needs to pay attention when people tell them “yeah…you might wanna pay attention to this security break you have.”

The giving away of the frogs is not a big deal, she’s a GM and if someone had the code to make those frogs in the first place, they can make them again. She lost very little of value apart from the frogs, which, as I said, someone can just make for her again. There have been people offering to reimburse her the things she lost, which is very kind of them, and if I had anything of value in GW1 I would do the same. Gaile was basically just a high-profile name that would attract attention and that’s why her account was the one that got “hacked.”

Taking the word of a thief, one who has already actively demonstrated that they do not consider their own given word to have any value, seems like a bad idea. Someone who says, essentially, “I am a liar, a cheater, a thief, and go back on my given word when I feel like it,” is not someone we should trust.

Silicato.4603:

But stop playing victim, and assume responsabilities. A hacker cant hack something that cant be hacked… and if something is hackeable, is childish to blame the hacker for it.

I really hope you mistyped something in that statement, because otherwise you are ABSOLUTELY AND OBJECTIVELY WRONG.

First, nothing online is unhackable.

Second, by the logic of your statement: it is childish to blame the guy who drinks, drives and runs over someone because he’s old enough to buy alcohol and have a licence. It’s childish to blame the guy who paints graffiti all over the walls because he can buy spray paint and someone built a wall. It is childish to blame a pet abuser because their pet is close enough to kick. It is childish to blame the car thief, because the car owner parked on the street.

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean it’s okay to do it, nor does it absolve you of responsibility when you do it.

The hacker chose to hack, they chose to hurt someone, and the blame AND consequences rest on them because THEY MADE THAT CHOICE. There is nothing childish about that.

~EW

Laurie.1698:

This happens in all industries everywhere. Years ago, when the internet and all this was new and this began to happen, it irritated me so much that I took it upon myself to enter the server security field and dedicate my career to beating those at their own game. I’ve seen every “excuse” in the book, I’ve seen just about every way of doing this..nothing changes the fact that wrong is wrong….socially inept vigilantism is the most cringe worthy excuse I’ve seen for those examples. Odd, you could have just applied a simple principle everyone learned in Kindergarten…“if its not yours don’t touch it”

Bottom line is, this is something that will continue to happen in small percentages, this is a constant vigilance that needs to be maintain and is, accessing accounts for any reason is wrong, damaging, and the consequences should be severe for each and every person that not only did the account compromise but those who participated in knowing it was being done and doing nothing about it. They are the future ones who have obviously made their viewpoint on account compromise known as acceptable so are a danger as well.

Last thing….and most important. People are people, not computers, they are not perfect, that is exactly why procedures and protections are put into place in the first place. Mistakes will be made…its the nature of the business, the people business that make it so unpredictable. Every angle, every step, one step ahead at all times is an unacceptable expectation, its not possible. 20 years experience says its not physically possible. Do not blame the victim, blame the “kitten” who took it upon themselves to do this.

Not to worry though, they will be found, the hole they crawled in on will be not only closed but vigilantly watched from this point forward. Each time, the holes close tighter and tighter. People like me, and others, laugh in your face when we close your spider holes, another pest eliminated, crying and denouncing us and our procedures all the way. “If its not yours, don’t touch it.”

You are now my favorite person for the day.

~EW

This happens in all industries everywhere. Years ago, when the internet and all this was new and this began to happen, it irritated me so much that I took it upon myself to enter the server security field and dedicate my career to beating those at their own game. I’ve seen every “excuse” in the book, I’ve seen just about every way of doing this..nothing changes the fact that wrong is wrong….socially inept vigilantism is the most cringe worthy excuse I’ve seen for those examples. Odd, you could have just applied a simple principle everyone learned in Kindergarten…“if its not yours don’t touch it”

Bottom line is, this is something that will continue to happen in small percentages, this is a constant vigilance that needs to be maintain and is, accessing accounts for any reason is wrong, damaging, and the consequences should be severe for each and every person that not only did the account compromise but those who participated in knowing it was being done and doing nothing about it. They are the future ones who have obviously made their viewpoint on account compromise known as acceptable so are a danger as well.

Last thing….and most important. People are people, not computers, they are not perfect, that is exactly why procedures and protections are put into place in the first place. Mistakes will be made…its the nature of the business, the people business that make it so unpredictable. Every angle, every step, one step ahead at all times is an unacceptable expectation, its not possible. 20 years experience says its not physically possible. Do not blame the victim, blame the “kitten” who took it upon themselves to do this.

Not to worry though, they will be found, the hole they crawled in on will be not only closed but vigilantly watched from this point forward. Each time, the holes close tighter and tighter. People like me, and others, laugh in your face when we close your spider holes, another pest eliminated, crying and denouncing us and our procedures all the way. “If its not yours, don’t touch it.”

Problem right there, stack stack stack

“We on break”
-BG

RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE

This is how this works right? We complain and get free glicko? Because you certainly dont get it for winning a matchup by 200k

RNGSUS BLESS US PLEASE

vana.5467:

Saw TW streaming last Thursday.
…snip…

Did you need to create 2 accounts to copy and pasted how TW can beat unorganized zergs?

Tiilimon.6094:

You might want to look into Voice Attack or something similar, so you can set voice commands as hotkeys.

Uh. No. I doubt it’s approved and adding it would likely get his account banned since it talks about powerful macros on that site, so I expect you can chain skills to one command.

Please don’t recommend non approved programs for someone to try.

The V.8759:

Gaile,
I am asking the following question just out of curiosity :
Can’t things like this be taken to Court to shut down the site? Fighting it at the source sounds like the most efficiënt option.

(I’m assuming it’s not easily done, otherwise it would have happend, but I’m just wondering how that works)

It’s a jurisdictional issue. If the gold selling site is in another country that doesn’t have mutual enforcement laws, ArenaNet will have a lot of difficulty establishing standing. Also you don’t sue a site, you sue its owners. These shady sites aren’t exactly registered corporations as far as I know. So you have to find a court with authority over both parties, you have to determine who the parties actually are, and you have to show that a law or contractual rule has been broken and what damages have resulted. Even if all that were possible, pursuing an international prosecution is expensive. Then what if you shut them down? They will create another site that does the same things, as they don’t really care if they’re breaking rules, they’re raking in the money.

I would love it if they could successfully get punitive damages assessed against these sites that parasitically leech off of and often thereby ruin on line games. I’m a lawyer, I always find the rule of law the best way to preserve civilization. I just know it’s not so simple as trotting down to the courthouse and filing a pleading, not in this kind of situation.

So ANet has to attack it from the other end, by making it hard for players to buy gold from third parties and by booting out those players who do it, hopefully hard enough that word spreads that you’ll just lose your account and have wasted that cash you could have spent legitimately on gems to turn into gold.

Likely, the only ‘official’ statement you will receive is contained in the Sticky above.

Good luck.

In regards to the Shroud/weapon thing: You also lose any AR from that weapon when you go into shroud. That makes for a fun surprise in the middle of scale 100 if you’re not prepared.

Vacheron.9870:

femalehumanmeta.8351:

Valandor.9506:

Vacheron.9870:

IF you leave it empty, does it give you any disadvantages?

Nope.

This is actually incorrect. Here’s a reddit post that does a good job of explaining.

tldr – if you want full stats when you go into shroud, you need scepters in both slots.

interesting… how big is the difference?

Depends when you go into shroud. If you go into shroud with the set without the scepter, you’ll lose all stats and the sigil that come from the scepter.

Valandor.9506:

Vacheron.9870:

IF you leave it empty, does it give you any disadvantages?

Nope.

This is actually incorrect. Here’s a reddit post that does a good job of explaining.

tldr – if you want full stats when you go into shroud, you need scepters in both slots.

ScionKai.4907:

Look you guys can write a 50 page dissertation for all I care and you’re not going to convince me that the current solution of doing nothing is effective.

Anet IS doing something. Not doing what you suggest != doing nothing.

• Increase the distance between the “contribution popup” (as in hearts of Maguma and WvW) and the “chests on right side”.
  I always get the contribution popup when I want to loot my chests.

• Add a hot-key (assignment possibility) to loot the chests on the right.

When using HQ teleport items (eg. Captain’s Airship pass, Noble’s Folly pass, etc), can we please have the option to go back to the map where we initially used the item? Is it too much to ask, is it game breaking? Maybe you can atleast put us at a safe waypoint in the map.

Please add this option to add more value to the item so people will get enticed to buy these HQ teleport items.

BTW, nice touch on the airship HQ, you can jump off from the airship and safely land on map below.

Wishlist: [work in progress]

1. Bindable mouse buttons for Action Camera – Let me choose what they do in AC.

2. Renewed use of character personalities – Original choice determines voice type of character, see 3.

3. New voices for characters – leaving the originals in tact but adding two(2) more options per character type corresponding to the personality type chosen at character creation, all current characters get a chance to choose this again.

4. A way to press one button once to clear the screen of ALL windows/menus – this has been sorely missing since launch.

5. Make class-specific special skills viewable like weapon and slot skills – e.g. Necromancer Death Shroud, land and underwater; basically any skill set that swaps out the weapon bar, including Engineer’s kits that can only be viewed/moused-over when in use.

6. BLC Keys more obtainable – increase drop rate, merchant who sells them for Spirit Shards, up the per-week limit from personal stories a little, anything.

7. Easier to see target marker arrows – options to make it flash/move more, options to change the color of the arrow and base ring, red in a sea of red is hard to see.

8. A sigh emote “/sigh” – I miss this almost as much as the clear all bind in GWs.

9. BLTC will re-purchase, for gems, any consumable it sells for gems – including all bank/merch/TP expresses, Repair Canisters, Revive Orbs, etc. anywhere between 10 and 50% of sell value would be fine.

10. Build Templates and Equipment Templates – make them separate but linkable to each other.

Im sure it’s in here somewhere, but:
For the love of god, add “Open all” options to more bags/containers. I just clicked my way through over 750 fractal relic boxes because of the +7 refunds.

- Guild banners: Get rid of the notification when clicking guild-banners (or let guilds actually edit the text that appears when their guild drops a banner).
- Superior siege production: atm. it is possible to buy 10x siege masters guide, but it is not possible to make several superior siege pieces at the same time. Add a 10x superior siege recipe for the mystic forge (if someone makes superior siege, it is usually a lot)

fictitiousacct.1782:

I would like to salvage blood rubies without clicking accept salvage each time. It’s just annoying if you want to salvage a significant number and need to click it each time.

^THIS. I was just salvaging these yesterday and thought the same thing.

For Legendary items, if I am at one point playing a healer, and the switch to a damage character, I want to be able to change the rune or sigil when I change the stats without having to constantly buy new runes and sigils. I think when you apply a rune or sigil to a legendary item add it to a list that can then be selected from. You can only select runes or sigils that have been applied to the legendary piece once.