Guild Wars 2

The level 20 explorer scroll has given me my first tutorial level 20

Guild Wars 2 rocks.

Seriously.

Quite a few years back, a few MMO lovers left Blizzard to make a game. They also made a business case for a subscription free service, which another company assessed as a reasonable risk and put their own money into the project.

Guild Wars 2 exists because of the successful outcome of that risk taking venture. ArenaNET has, now, 8 years of financial records with which to make their decisions.

As the new game follows the same structure as the old, I conclude that something must be right with the subscription-free model, otherwise it wouldn’t be so prevalent in today’s games.

If you think Guild Wars 2 needs a subscription, to me, it sounds like you are coming from other games where you did pay a subscription, and this is what you are used to. Do you think that how we are charged for the game will affect the quality of it?

I paid only one subscription, in 32 years, for a game: Lego Universe… and guess what, it didn’t even last the year I paid in advance for.

Nothing in the gem store is necessary for you to enjoy the game, though the consumer mentality driven into each of us makes us yearn for much of it.

Making it expensive is part of the allure. (Think about cars as a comparison.) If everything was dirt cheap, everyone would have it, no one would look different..and ArenaNET would have to work harder to produce more content to fulfill the ongoing desire to stand out — something which is impossible if it’s cheap enough for everyone to buy.

Full disclosure: I pay more, in gems, every month, than I would ever pay on a subscription to this game. I -try- to find something to buy to show my ongoing support. I’ve bought gold a few times, but don’t really find it as fulfilling as grinding the game.

I have a son, and have a software company of my own. I understand the value of my time, and the pleasure this game gives me far outweighs the “dollars per gold” equation that gem buyers use as an argument against those who complain about grinding for their gold.

Really – if it’s such a problem, why are you even playing? Guilt? In my not so humble opinion, that is INSANE.

I love this game, and I will continue to recommend to everyone I know.

The age estimation is also goofy, as my characters were stilled listed as 11 months old It says 12 today…

Game has crashed out to “send error report” twice for me, both times during the Scarlet battle at the end of the event. Both times it there was heavy action. That"s over 200k XP plus the rewards.

I’m loving the event, but it is a real stab in the unhappy place to have such a large chunk of time invested in an event be written off. Is it necessary to be in a group to avoid this?

I have finished the Living Story achievement, so it’s not happening to me every time..

Is there a reason that I am seeing no more than 3 birthday presents in an account with more than 3 toons celebrating their birthdays?

I noticed that they arrived a few hours early, so I’m hoping that I forgot only having made 3 toons per account on the opening night… but it seems oddly consistent.

1. Account bound items in a soul bound present? Doesn’t sound like the present needed to be soul bound for that.

1. Account bound mini? Well, okay, now I have 3…. dreaming of forging the extras

2. Level 20 scroll. Great for the toons that I left at level 1 all year (seriously).

3. Booster. This is my favourite part… does it stack with other boosters? I’d like to know this before I waste one by accident.

Happy Birthday!

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Bind your A and D to the respective strafe directions. Works wonders. You dont need the A/D turning anyways since its crap.

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I already do that.. :P

I only started PvP recently, with a Guardian. This went well until the past patch or two (wasn’t paying enough attention, sorry) and now I can’t seem to stay alive against a ranger or Necro.

I switched to a Necro and after a couple of Ames getting the hang of it, I was doing well again.. With all the minions I could get my hands on and no research on builds.

There is only one area which I feel really hurts my experience:

targeting.

I use the call target to keep an eye on who I am fighting, but any player who can cloak is un targeted when they reappear. Toons who don’t have this ability remain targeted, even after they die and respawn. (Targeting also help me avoid constantly getting retargeted to minions and pets)

To me, that’s a huge issue, especially when trying to find my mouse cursor (making it turn red doesn’t they’ll any!) while using right mouse to turn my character.

I don’t know how other players control their toons, but using mouse with rt-click to strafe and turn can be a painful experience.

Help! I want to be a PvP guru, but not like this…

I’ve asked a few times.. I remember the days when she was crazy loud.

Now, it is non existant.

Please add the sound back or up the volume a bit.. please..

There are plenty, such as the ghost, which have sounds I can still hear, so I don’t think it’s my sound settings.

PLEASE

Cesmode, you’ve missed out on how Legendary stats work: same as best in slot, but with stats you can switch on the fly… So by this system, it will not offer any better protection than ascended, but will have versatility. Of course, it’s still at least 4+ months before the end of 2013, so it’s not coming that soon.

If you’re already disliking the game enough to threaten quitting again, why not take a break for a few months and see how you feel about Tyria, then. It might alleviate the stress this game causes you and enable you to evaluate from a fresh perspective.

… and if there are new tiers of armour and tougher baddies, well, you’ll know you made a good chose. If there aren’t, you may feel invigorated to jump back into the fray.

Gild Wars 1 was a very successful game, without a “gear grind,” why would they want to change that now, in the heels of this game’s record setting success? Something must be going right!

Thanks for the hands on responses in the forum, Mr. J. It must take a thick skin to survive the daily onslaught of the angry vocal minority.

Yes, I have an Oculus VR too, smarty pants, but it is still only 1280×800 and designed for 1st person usage, not 3rd….

My LG 5600 works great with nVidia stereoscopic drivers, as does my Sony HX800. Both are limited to 1280×720, though.

I found DDD (Tridef 3D) and it lets me do 1920×1080 over-under (never use SBS when you have this option!).. BUT, as stated elsewhere, the lack of the stereoscopic checkbox leaves me with a few messed up elements, such as shadows and name tags.

So, I think the goal is to find a command line “force on” for that switch (or registry, or whatever)…

Support team? Is this hidden somewhere?

My guess is that the item is soulbound or account bound. You used it, you bought it. Who would want to pay full pop for your second hand junk? Be happy you get anything.

I wish there were more people in the world willing to stand up to a challenge instead of attempting to whine their way out of having to do it.

“You know what wakes me up in the middle of the night covered in a cold sweat? Knowing that you aren’t any worse than anyone else in your whole screwed up generation. In the old days, you know how you got to the top? Huh? By being better than the guy ahead of you. How do you people get to the top? By being so kittening incompetent, that the guy ahead of you can’t do his job, so he falls on his kitten and congratulations, you are now on top. And now the top is down here, it used to be up here… and you don’t even know the kittening difference.” – Victor Sr., “Go” (1999)

Negative Nancy’s all around.. I understand… BUT

What I saw down there is a collection of various bits from the previous incarnations of Orr, like a “Best of” or “Greatest Hits” build. This doesn’t feel like an accident, but a zone carefully crafted to be be consistent with their vision of a level 80 zone, and the schizophrenic hot and cold feedback supplied by the player base.

I would be more than a little surprised to find it wasn’t by design… and to go and nerf something like this after spending the past 10 months getting it just right would make no sense, to me.

The Pavilion is a mindless grind, whereas this is a real event.

Is it because everyone is farming the Pavilion that there isn’t much excitement?

Cursed Shores is back, but now with better loot.

Almost 3 hours running around down there and I didn’t end up with a stack of porous bones, either.

Thank you very much, ArenaNET. I’m only saddened to think that it will be “cleansed” at some point in the near future.

FINALLY realized the solution…

Enable “Best Texture Filtering”

Being relieved of the need to grind one dungeon for hours on an end is intended to make the game more enjoyable.

The only reason I read for raging over the (long expected) adjustment to the gold trough is a need to have more than anyone else in the game.

If that’s your motivation, I’m sure there are new opportunities waiting to be found.. And they will last longer if YOU find them and keep them quietly to yourself.

Following the herd will, at some point, leave you nerfed again!

Good luck!

Plus one for best game, ever, vote.

Ignore the unwashed masses, they know not of what they speak, because they spend most of their time playing Forum Wars instead of a Guild Wars,

On the positive side it inspires me to kill more monsters

Items like legendaries and ascended items give addicts, like myself, something to do. Adding time gating, grinding, etc. are necessary so we don’t just get the latest shiny within a few hours of its release. The stats are irrelevant – the shinies aren’t meant for the mainstream, but the OCD’s who want more more more more more. I’m happily part of that group, and I feel it’s OKAY that ArenaNET makes so much of this content that it’s darn near impossible to get it all without completely giving up your real life.

Do you have EVERYTHING in the real world? Probably not. If you did, I suspect you’d be getting your thrills flying your Lear Jet, not playing Guild Wars.

I suggest tempering your own expectations. If you feel that you HAVE to spend all of your time playing to get ALL of the achievements, it’s time to evaluate their importance in your life.

The worst part about this game is the constant trash talking on the forum.

You want a challenge? Stop playing PvE! No AI will ever give you the challenge of an organized PvP team.

ArenaNET is staying consistent to their original vision by limiting the progression opportunity in the game. It’s ridiculous that there are seven pages of bickering over whether players should have everything handed to them or WORK for it.

To meet the wide variety of player types, ArenaNET must offer a wide variety of options that appeal each. If you want something that is in the “wrong category,” it’s YOUR problem, not the game’s. Once you are past that, you will have the choice to enjoy the game or move on.

I bet you all that the time spent on this forum has a bigger impact on the game’s attendance than dailies.

PLAY THE GAME!!!!

Kerishan.8460:

Again pink weapons? The mists weapons weren’t enough? Really ANet, stop doing pink things.

Are you referring to all those pink JADE skins from the Dragon Bash? Try matching that green with pink armour…

At least the blue SAB skins offered a good complementary shade..

Wintersday was all about brown.

Aetherized skins pink? Nope…

Can you remind me which skins were pink?

Happy to see some pink in the mix again…

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the drop rate was “corrected” with the patch… So what you are seeing now is how it was intended, sort of like the guaranteed progression of scraps from black lion chests.. Lucky you to have picked up a couple while the system was bugged. Having played every event since launch, I’ve found that the highest drop rates are always immediately at the first release of new content. Get while the getting is good

Good. Just experienced it tonight. A little bit annoying

They used to be in a mystic forge recipe (still rare drop) which has been removed since the most recent Southsun living story event,

As an owner of two, who grinded for the honour, am happy to share my experience.

Dreamer owners are like a specialty car club. We wave and nod, sometimes getting into a chat. Non-owners are either hot or cold in their comments.. Either a sad quip of admonishment that they would never waste their money on it and it should be taken out of the game, or wow that’s amazing, how long did it take? I ignore and block the former, and chat happily with the latter. I try to be helpful and answer questions, not brag.

Twilight gets less comment, other than “I want that!” The expectation of being a leader, is higher. Not as much negative. Once again, I am happy to answer questions and help people with their quests.

The mot important aspect is expectation. Players expect that I know what I’m doing, so I try to always be on my A-game and represent Tyria honourably. I can tell quite quickly who spent their time trading to get one and who just bought. With 2600+ hours in the game, and two world completions, I have enough of a clue to support my weapon.

Last night, a commander in TS told his friends that he was all right, being short of players in his squad, because he had a legendary with him. Of course, I knew I had to back that up and put down the extra effort.

I’m not an elitist, I am a lover of Guild Wars 2, and for me the Legendary is the ultimate quest. Only now that I have two would I consider buying number three, and simply because it is starting to look like a better deal, economically speaking. I already have my badges and world completion ready….who knows.. I’m waiting to see what comes next, and saving my coppers.

I simply tell friends to buy the standard version. There are so many minis in the game now, I never touch Rytlock. Actually.. I never used him on my main, and have him on my secondary simply because I don’t spend any gold at all on the account!

That said, deluxe edition guild bankers ALWAYS come with newly created characters, which is not true with the new gem store banker…

Guardian because the skill mechanics are very fluid and organic. You can leap in the middle of a spin, or move and jump. The warrior is either locked in place or stuck in a long run animation cycle.

Please go back to GW1 and farm your HoM points, the community will love the fresh blood and you’ll learn what grind really means.

The slider is a slap in the face to everyone who paid MONEY to buy an instrument. Is this game filled with that old man next door who complains about those punks next door blaring their loud music?

My thought is to make /block cover the music. If you hate someone’s music and they won’t stop playing for you, you probably would want to block them for something else eventually, anyhow

Sil, why would that open a hornets’ nest? I agree completely.. WvW needs command and control over a huge army of independent people who (for the most part) have no willingness to follow orders.

Zacchary, please let me start by saying that I have a matching/similar position. I suggest there is only one bias-free type of balance required: exploitable imbalance. The explanation of how a thief may sneak out of a combat situation (to the great frustration of most of the people who play against them.) My counter has become to spin around in circles and guess where their best course of exit would be… and the more I do it, the better I get. BUT, if there is a skill that gives one profession a distinct, unintended, super power, I see that as an exploit in the intention of the game, not just a failure to vanilla-ize all the classes into equality.

I feel that PvE is suffering because of the balances focused on PvP. In PvE, it isn’t a huge deal if a short bow fires the same distance as a long bow (since we are supposedly working together in PvE, not competing), but in PvE it may have a huge impact. Separating the skills, a la GW1, feels like the best solution to this.

I have all 8 classes, with only the thief below 80. My personal favourites are Guardian and Ranger, but I find that each brings its own strengths and weaknesses, and all are completely playable in the PvE world. It took time to learn about these differences, but it is possible.

Now that I’ve started playing PvP, I am understanding more the potential reasons for the “outcry” after each nerf. It makes a much bigger difference. Once again – split PvP and PvE.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that WvW is tied to PvE instead of PvP. PvE is “help others,” while PvP and WvW are “kill others.” If a PvE profession is underpowered, it will be at a disadvantage in WvW. Is this where players are crying out the pain of their profession being underpowered?

1. Have tried PVP? If not, why?

Yes, but only in the past few days (played PvE since pre-launch). Why? To earn enough glory to get a PvP salvage kit to clean out my inventory of AP chest PvP skin duplicates.

2. Tried it and liked it or not?

Night 1: Tons of trash talk, lack of organization. Good amount of success but feeling like it was holding back my “wealth” progression time in PvE
Night 2: Late at night (west coast)). Less trash talk (still some), much higher calibre of players. At the end of the run, I went back to my PvE “AP maximization” project and realized that there is a great -consistent- AP/hr ratio.
Morning after Night 2: Starting to pull together a group of friends to play it.

3. Are active PVP players?

Looks like I might be!

4. Done both WvW and PVP: which do you prefer and why?

My second attempt at PvP came right after my first experience as an invited member to a 360+ member guild’s organized WvW session.

It felt more like a Hack-a-thon than anything else, and the leadership was very one dimensional (standing around at a gate, trying to get in, until the enemy got themselves together and flooded a huge army into the area, decimating us, while at the same time sending another large army in to take back the keep we acquired shortly before that). It took half an hour to get the group organized for an hour of play before I was disenchanted.

My main takeaway:

PvP is a great opportunity because, at the introductory level, it doesn’t require anywhere near the time investment of PvE or PvP. It’s what makes games like Unreal Tournament (wayyy back!) such a huge hit – easy to get in, easy to put down. You don’t feel the pressure of a large time commitment, like with a (non CoF!) dungeon run.

… and back to those Achievement Points..

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The “Random” part of RNG does not mean Guaranteed.

Yes thanks for quoting yourself. I read the threads, and as I said it my email, I am not offering anything other than my experience with an infinitesimally small sample set which proves nothing except that the chance is not 100%. Heck, this is possible for one.

I also understand the technical reason why we tend to see good and bad “luck” in runs instead of a truly random distribution. Do you?

I’m with you Lord Byron. How many people here know the reference?

And I’m older than you by the way.. 30+ years of gaming

Every company makes good and bad decisions. I think the worst decisions come out of putting too much effort into working from feedback instead of making the game what they all know is right.

Nightingale.9714:

RNG on in-game stuff is one thing but we’re talking about REAL money here! I mean if there’s any ONE place in the game that anet should strive to make people feel satisfied its the frieking in-game purchases! We’re supporting your game, can’t you make this fair to us anet? The fact that the first reply to this thread is someone who has already been through this should SAY something.

I know. I was more upset when the trading post listing and sell fees were hidden during beta and for a short while after launch. That was pretty unethical, in my not so humble opinion

The problem is that key buyers will get burned once, then come to the forums and learn about it.. Fuming mad.. And rightly so. When they go back and buy more, well… that said, in this case, there were a lot of statements made by the company which suggested the success rate would be much higher. Even putting these skins “on sale” has only brought the estimated value of them down to a ridiculous real dollar price, not an insane one.

I filed a support ticket, asking to be in on any list of people affected if this turns out to be a bug. Nice and friendly, no angry words.. People of any support will always be more helpful when you approach the problem in a friendly way, regardless of the hue of purple your (or my) face is, at that moment.

Farm keys from storyline, I suppose is the best advice I can give.

Cody, can you track to see how many people turn the new musical instrument volume slider down to zero? If this is widespread, it essentially makes playing the instruments a tad pointless for anyone other than the musician, no? I appreciate not all owners are virtuosos, but to make a dollar valued…you know..

And it is possible that when a person finds out about the instrument volume slider, they will crank it to zero, making the instruments potentially pointless for anyone but yourself!

I’ve got the horn, and played a “charge” flourish before jumping into battles. A little pointless now…

During the rule of Mr. Jobs, Apple was notorious for having the lowest R&D budget of the top tech companies. Steve, himself, even claimed that building to customer feedback produced garbage, because the customer has no frame of reference for what they want, when a new product is being produced. It’s all in the context of what they know.

This seems to be what is happening with Guild Wars 2. The vocal minority on the forums is having an impact of the philosophy of the game.. And then complaining about it when they get their wish!

Please.. I implore you.. Take a page from Steve’s book: beyond bug reports, ignore all of the garbage we post, telling ArenaNET what we think is the right way to d things.

While you’re at it, find a strong leader for the company, with razor sharp focus and a vision which matches the game philosophy, and give them absolute authority to direct the company’s game.

When you do this, no matter what criticism and complaints come from the loudest voices, the game will achieve its greatest success, and not simply become a disorganized mishmash of everything else that came before it.

Other readers.. Please note: this is not the “discussion” forum, it is the “suggestion” forum. This is my suggestion, and your option, while it might feel self validating to type out, is irrelevant. If you do have a suggestion of your own, make a new topic.

5 keys to test it out.. Zero scraps. Common is definitely not 100%. It could be 90% of course, but just not in my case. I will leave my “test” at that

When I read that scraps are now a “common” drop from BL chests, I used my 5 saved up keys, I got 2 scraps. Ok, that sounds reasonable… So I thought, that’s common enough to warrant a 5 pack of keys from the gem store. Of course, anyone who follows the RNG threads already knows what I found..none. Not one. How is that common? I guess common is still “unlikely.” I had received 2, or even 1 more, I would have probably sprung for another pack… But ah we’ll, I guess that covers my gem purchase qualification for the next time ArenaNET gives a free gift to customers.

Check the threads for people who have spend hundreds of dollars for “rare” chances.

I was ready, so I am not submitting to make a complaint, but it help make people aware than even common can still mean nothing!

I hotjoined a pvp match yesterday, for the sole purpose of acquiring the glory I would need to salvage the duplicate items dusting up my inventory (from the AP chests).

My experience? Those players spend far more time chatting than fighting. I kept my mouth shut and found it was boringly simple to simply keep a teammate nearby and slice the disorganized enemy to bits…

Now, the positive side: There were a few people in the lobby who were extremely nice and helpful with my noobie questions. They also recommended I look into the ranked matchup system for more serious play.

I think there are two requirements to get PvE players into PvP:
1. bored of PvE/WvW and watch a bigger challange
2. direction that is more of the storyline type than reading text boxes of documentation masquerading as lore.

Now that I’ve achieved my first goal of cleaning my inventory, I might peek around from time to time. Unfortunately, the “wealth bug” of PvE has me considering what I will miss out on by being in PvP vs. building wealth for the next Legendary (etc) in PvE.

Karma is sort of account bound, when kept in the jugs.

I have so much of it, I want more things to be able to buy with it…. it’s being poured on us like water and there are only so many green peppers one needs

My inventory full of white level 80 armor after an hour in Cursed Shores, doing only single time runs through Plinx, Penitent, Shelter and Melandru, and tells me DR is over the top. The value in the runs is getting the bags, which aren’t affected by nearly the same amount.

(well, maybe when there was heavy botting it had value, but that day has passed)

Determining how DR works and being a bot are mutually exclusive. I’ve been here since the evening of pre-launch, and I still don’t see the point. There are far too few bots in Crystal Desert to warrant such loot limitations, especially after fighting a billion and two spiders for 6 minutes at Verdance.

ArenaNET is not perfect. No company is perfect. ArenaNET TRIES to do their best, and I give them credit for that.

zerorogue: Please understand that you do not speak for the community as a whole (or even 80% of them). Using this method with the intent of making your argument sound more valid does more to minimize it than anything else. Using your own RNG to determine the long term value of items doesn’t do much either.

Illconceived Was Na: Thank you for reading and offering a thought out observation! It do agree that over the long term, the number of players with the original Legendaries will decline, and perhaps even more after new, potentially more appealing ones, appear. My focus is toward the exclusivity of the skin, in the same manner that events skins. That said, the event skins may be accessible again if the items required to purchase them from the vendor re-appear, so they are potentially not lost forever.

MithranArkanere: We already have the regret argument with living story events, and I am firmly on the camp of “you snooze, you lose.” This is because I am a business owner and do feel it is a valid means to encourage people to get in while the gettings good

On the converse token, what about the regret of people who invested a large chunk of time into creating one or more Legendary weapons, which becomes minimized by every Johnny come lately carrying one around? There are those who spend real dollars to purchase Legendaries, but as I have stated, it’s quite obvious who does and who actually worked for them, when you watch them play.

Amadan: Having a Legendary doesn’t validate attempting to troll me by using emotive language instead of logical arguments.

Maybe? If it didn’t have MF on it, I’d stick with Soldier of the Soldier sets. (PVT/PVT) Never heard a bad word about them from a Zerker, especially after I’ve revived them a few times

Love my Dreamer and specially crafted it first because of its beautiful, unique design and crazy rainbows and unicorns.

That said, if all of the legendaries were this overt, it would detract from this one’s effects!

I have a sneaking feeling that we will be able to make guild tools for management via the API being developed by Anet. Keep an eye out.

I stated the reason at the beginning of the message. Please put some thought into your response or move on.

I doubt that all movement is logged, so reported individuals are probably monitored for a period of time to do an effective analysis of their activities.

Please merge