Guild Wars 2

And here I was hoping for a bunyip/taniwha reference…

(We can’t have oceanic servers, but oceanic elder dragons on the other hand….)

I started an alt using a variation of a self-imposed challenge wooodenpotatoes used.

- Soft reset my gold to zero (dumped it into my personal guild bank)
- Not allowed to open my map except when in a city or outpost.
- Mini-map was minimized and zoomed in (WP had an overlay that removed his)
- Salvage/sell/TP all loot I can’t equip
- Not allowed to buy from karma vendors, but can freely use TP to fill gear gaps from drops.
- Not allowed to use waypoints except to travel within a city (or to revive from death), can use asura gates to travel between cities.
- No access to account or guild banks

It was quite an immersive experience as I would stock up on salvage kits and explore the open world on foot. Without the constant availability to refer to the map to guide me to my destination, I was more reliant on my visual memory of a zone to navigate the wilderness, which added to the immersion. I do wish however that I could have completely disabled my mini-map.

I’ve only leveled the alt to 30 so far (I intend to go back once I’ve finished crafting Mawdrey on my main), but it was a great experience. It also opened my eyes to the value of drops I usually just deposit in my bank, as the character had amassed 9g 85s by level 30 (after buying lvl 30 armor & weapons + runes/sigils).

@Leimhroo: Chore list? This doesn’t seem to exist in my version of the client

Earning gold in this game is easy, even for casual players like myself. Yes, it would be nice to have other options to obtain cosmetics, but ANet have already made some moves in that direction.

First off, I don’t personally find this to be a grindy game. I play the content I want to play and get gold and other rewards that I can use to further my long term goals. It may not be the most rewarding content, but I’m not in a hurry and I’m not forced to do specific content to get rewards I can use (even if it’s just gold).

To my mind, the “no grind philosophy” is more of a development ideal than a statement of fact. It’s the ideal they try to hold themselves to, and being human, they will sometimes fail to meet those ideals fully.

So I feel that the posters in this thread who are trying to prove the philosophy is false are missing the point, and would be better off directing their efforts towards highlighting the areas of the game that fall short of that ideal and offering constructive suggestions on possible improvements.

Again, I don’t find this to be a grindy game, but that doesn’t mean I’m trying to invalidate anybody else’s experience, I’ve just been following this thread and am tired of the bickering crowding out the reasonable points that other posters are making that could help ANet improve the game.

Ashen.2907:

John Smith.4610:

This game has gotten better and better and better and it’s going to be better and better and better than it is now.

To be fair there is no more factual backing for this statement than for his.

To be fair, you’re quoting selectively. The statement you’re quoting was prefaced with the phrase “I firmly believe”, indicating the statement was opinion rather than fact.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Why does ANet continue to push PVP
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/upcoming-guild-wars-2-player-vs-player-tournaments/
When most of us PVE or WvW?

Just imagine how all of that PVP/ESport money could have spent on the content that matters to ANet’s actual base populace?

I’m outraged that ArenaNet posted a news item in support of the PVP community (to which I don’t belong) to help promote community organised events. How dare they!

/sarcasm

OP, you really missed the mark on this one.

Fun. I’ve been here since the betas and the game might not be perfect, but I’m still having fun. Why else would I play a game?

naiasonod.9265:

Rangelost.4857:

The removal of the NPE.

I’m dead serious.

This. And until this, making a new character with the serious intention of actually playing it will get so much of my Nope that if Nope were a tangible substance, they’d be able to fill all the empty spaces in the galaxy with it.

There would be so much Nope that physics itself would break down, universal constants would fail and the sheer mass of all the Nope would collectively destabilize time itself, resulting in theoretical anomalies and paradoxes of unimaginable immensity.

I couldn’t give a crap less about the little rewards at every level-up. They made unlocking traits the most tedious list of chores I’ve ever seen any game system in any MMO in the history of ever just up and turned into one day, after it’d been very not-tedious for quite some time.

The trait rework wasn’t part of the NPE, it came earlier in the April patch.

I’m currently levelling two new characters, my first warrior and a 2nd guardian. The NPE gets a lot of grief, but frankly it really isn’t much of an issue and the rewards can include some nice items.

I haven’t hit the reported issues with the trait system yet, the warrior has grandfathered traits from the old system and the guardian has only just gotten to the point where traits are available, but has already unlocked a trait from doing events while levelling.

I also have confidence that the devs will take another pass at the traits system, as I like the idea of hunting traits in the open world, but characters should have enough traits available (or easily accessible) while levelling to have some choices on build. I’m okay with specific builds requiring you to unlock a few traits, and this is a great mechanism for adding new traits, but there should be some core traits that don’t need to be unlocked IMO.

1. The art. All of it.
2. Casual Friendly – if I only have a short time to play, I can usually still make some small progress towards one of my goals.
3. WvW. While primarily PVE player, I like the large scale PvP offered by this game mode and again, it’s casual friendly. Also, the WvW skill trees are an excellent example of horizontal progression.

My wish for 2015? More. I’ve genuinely enjoyed most of what has been delivered this year, and want to see where things are headed in the new year.

Overall I like the change, but I do feel that some of the PVE options are a bit too specific for my liking. However, the one time I felt unable to complete 3 PVE dailies in the limited time I had (and while playing an alt), I was able to quickly capture a sentry point in WvW to get my 10 APs.

I rolled a second guardian just before the NPE to do a self-imposed levelling challenge of not using waypoints or the map outside of cities or towns and running everywhere instead.

It was a really good way to reconnect with the game world, but the character is currently paused at level 31 while I’ve been playing the LS on my main. I also tracked gold separately for this character and sold everything I looted/salvaged on the TP, and after buying level 30 armor and weapons (including runes/sigils) I still had just under 9 gold just from playing normally, so I’d be interested to see how much I can accumulate by level 80

Kaz.5430:

The season 2 episodes are all replayable, so you’ve got two choices. You either purchase the episodes that you’ve missed with gems, or you find a friend who’s unlocked them, and ask them to run you through them.

This. Also new maps and other open world content is available without needing to purchase anything.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

skullmount.1758:

Not sure if it was already posted here, but in WP’s video, he shows that the three symbols around the snakes are the same that we had to do/find in GW1 prophecies to become ascended.

The images that are on the door now. The ones we see in the trailer are different. Since, as I understand it, to see the door now requires mapbreaking, it’s entirely possible to Crystal Desert runes are just a placeholder or an idea they later discarded. I’m hesitant to read to much into it until we see what the door looks like when we’re supposed to be able to reach it.

I agree that we can’t read too much into what’s currently on the doors in-game, as that could change when the area is released to players, but the fact that those 3 runes in particular were used as placeholders does indicate that some of the speculation may be on track.

Mental Paradox.3845:

Episode 8 is the last… Then they need another 2 month break… so yeah, disappointing.

Any citation for this? Given the full Carapace armor set is due to be unlocked during the remainder of the season, there may be 4 (or more) episodes remaining.

A potential timeline could have Ep 7 release on the 2nd, then Wintersday on the 16th, and then the remaining 3 episodes releasing in the new year (starting Jan 13th or 27th).

Goose.5196:

Everyone, except for the absolutely tiny minority of players who are happy with the objectively lethargic output of content by ANet, agrees with you.

Citation needed for the opinions stated as facts in this post.

Fernling.1729:

That’s one of the reasons I’m in no hurry to hit the cap. I’m going to take my sweet time raising my MF. If I’m still playing in a year or two, I will still have a use for the luck.
I think it was always intended to be a long term goal.

Ditto. I only just broke through the 100% MF mark during the Halloween event (which was very rewarding in terms of luck ). It’s a nice long-term goal that all my characters contribute to and benefit from.

SundayTrash.9562:

For a game that pride itself for not having a gear treadmill, and that ur end game was suppose to play dress up. Why is majority of the skin lock behind gem store.

Some new armor skins are now available in-game from playing the last half of S2, plus as people have mentioned, gem store armors are outnumbered by those already available in-game.

Astraea.2981:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Is it even possible, given the changes that came about in the world?

Well, one thing we now know for certain. There has actually been zero internal discussion on the subject, if an ANet employee came into the thread thinking this.

Nope, we can only say for certain that Gaile hasn’t been involved in any internal discussions that may (or may not) have occurred on the subject.

Personally, I don’t think this is being actively worked on at this point in time. There may have been some high-level internal discussions on how to do this, but no resources have been committed to the project.

BTW, love the name!

Alurazle.5430:

I’ve been waiting too >,< I mean Halloween was nice, but not really ‘fun’ in a sense that it was just farming trick or treat bags…nothing new.

I agree with this to a large extent. I think ANet did a good job with the rewards this year, and I didn’t have to spend too long farming ToT bags for the things that I wanted. Last year, I didn’t even bother as the rewards were too hard to attain.

But I still would have liked to have seen something new appear this year, even though I can understand why it didn’t happen. So I’m definitely looking forward to seeing some new content with the next episode of LS.

Afton.1326:

This is less relevant now but I will try to explain it since you asked:

Giving “soon” as an estimation of when a key change will take place, is very poor.

Thanks for explanation of your reasoning, but I don’t agree with it fully. I do agree that “soon” isn’t an acceptable estimate for key changes, but I don’t believe this fix/update qualifies as such.

Whatever the process of making this change involves, Anet should be able to estimate to within a week (i.e., not necessarily carry out within a week) of when it will be expected to be completed. Not being able to give this sort of precision would indicate to me that it is simply not prioritized enough. For a company not to be able to produce and reveal such a working deadline, even with all the contingencies taken into account, reflects poor management or a lack of priority or, othewise, perhaps a lack of transparency.

I’ll go with option C on this. If you haven’t noticed, ANet have been copping a lot of flak on the forums about their lack of transparency. While I believe they have started to turn things around, this lack of precision about release dates for fixes of this nature has been part of their policy for a long time.

Just because we haven’t been told of these estimates, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they were never produced.

The systemic aspect concerns all of the above, as oppossed to an individual. I presume it wasn’t just Gaile’s fault, or any other hard-working individual at Anet’s fault, but that something in their organization wasn’t working effectively if being able to produce a more specific time was impossible for this type of task. There are of course tasks in this world that are difficult to estimate with any precision, but I don’t buy that this sort of task should fall into that category (for a company that has their act together).

This was all addressing the discussion of “soon” being an acceptable timeframe.

I do know what systemic problems are, but I would be hesitant to try to diagnose the internal workings of a company from the outside. There is a problem here, but IMO it’s related to how progress on desired fixes/updates are communicated to the player base, and that seems to me to be more of a problem of policy rather than systems/processes.

However, if I understand correctly, they have been more specific about when the fix will happen. This is good. If they are able to fix this within the next few days, that is good. Notwithstanding that when they announced the fix, it should have included an estimation of when it will be ready (e.g., within “7 days” or in “7-10 days” ) and then make sure that that deadline is met.

So you’re happy to get an estimation of when it will be ready, but ANet must make sure that estimation is met?

tl;dr: Anet should be able do be more specific than “soon” when it comes to when critical/highly anticipated changes shoud be expected. Regarding this fix in particular, good if they actually get it done within a few days – just be more specific in the future about when it can be expected.

Based on what I’ve observed, for a critical change, ANet usually state that it’s being worked on and deploy the new build to live as soon as possible, so I’m fine with “soon” in these cases.

I do agree it would be good to get more specific time-frames for highly anticipated changes such as this one (due to expiring gem store sales), but just knowing what stage of development a desired change is at, or that it is being actively worked on would help in cases where ANet aren’t willing to communicate their own internal estimates.

Afton.1326:

Considering that the change that led to this problem should not have even come close to being implemented, any fix of it should have happened yesterday as far as expectations go for anyone who cares about this.

If a task is to be done, consider who is available to do it, what is needed to assure its proper functioning, and estimate how long it should take to do this – and factor in more time for contingencies. I cannot believe that the time needed for task completion would be so unfathomable that it couldn’t be estimated within a week (after 2 years of your production of this game). If this is a problem, consider investing some of your income from BL chests into proper manpower and organization.

Even if Anet does not have the resources to fix the problem quickly, not being able to give a seemingly forthright response about when it will be done just puts more salt in the wound.

Nothing personal meant here. The problems are obviously systemic.

Seriously? Releasing a new build into Production is not simply a matter of allocating resources to develop it and estimating how long it will take to build. There will be processes that have to be followed (some of which Gaile has already mentioned, such as localization) that make it a lot harder to estimate a possible release date.

The problems are obviously systemic? How so? The change is likely to be released in the next few days, if so, this will mean that Anet would have taken less than two weeks to design the solution and implement it into the live environment in response to the negative feedback from the CE revamp.

This time-frame is perfectly reasonable given this is not a game-breaking bug that requires an emergency fix. Yes, it is important to people (myself included, my last gold → gem purchase was for 250 gems), but from Gaile’s statements it’s obvious that ANet are giving it a high priority, so I’m failing to see any “obviously systemic” problems.

Malediktus.9250:

“Things are more expensive when they are new. Decreasing their cost over time is a business’ way of maximizing return.”
Except Anet earns nothing by reducing the price from 500 Gems to a miniscule amount of Candy Corn or plastic fangs. Only thing they achieved is making the people who bought this with gems last year angry.

I bought this last year, and I’m okay with it being reintroduced as an earnable reward this year. I have however also benefited from the reduced prices this year, obtaining both Prince Thorn & a Halloween Pail (in addition to the new Maize Balm recipe and Hexed Outfit) so far.

Last year I opted out of the grind for these items because of the insane requirements from my casual perspective, so I really appreciate the changes this year. If that means that my Carlotta is a little less exclusive, then so be be it.

Wanderer.3248:

Regardless of the actual odds of getting 2 or more skins, the odds of someone posting on this forum that they got 2 or more skins are close to 100%.

QFT.

Although I’m a casual player, I was thinking about goals after finally getting 100% map completion and started working on charging the various items required to build the Mawdrey backpiece.

One of the things I’ve liked about doing this so far has been the scavenger hunt nature that has required me to revisit previously explored areas, often leading me to areas I didn’t know of.

While this might be slightly tangential to the original post, like collections, it’s an example where ANet can reuse existing content in new ways.

There’s a number of reasons for me, including the building aspect of the OP, but like Alteraphim, it’s the fact that I can make progress towards most of my goals even if I only have a short time available to play.

Astral Projections.7320:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Gah, this is why harvesting tools should be account bound. If they were 800 gems each, and given to all characters, I’d have bought the flame tools already, and would now be buying at least the logging axe for my necromancer (and any future necromancers). As it stands, I’ve bought no tools at all because having them on a single character, or moving them between, isn’t worth it.

Cool for those who will get use out of them like this, but ANet are losing a lot of gem sales here.

I seriously doubt fully account bound tools would be 800 gems. The original soulbound ones were 800 gems, then increased to 1000 gems for the version they are selling now. If they made an equipment slot for these then I would expect them to increase the price to above 1000 gems.

Also, what would this feature offer players who haven’t bought any gem store tools?

Wanze.8410:

Zackie.8923:

if anet wants to put in mounts, then they should put in swiftness too.

Well, looks like Anet doesnt want mounts in game, just toys.

Not just ANet, there’s a fairly vocal portion of the forums that don’t want them. I don’t really care either way, but I don’t think the game needs mounts.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Vayne.8563:

Well, as I said, at least one of my friends likes it better and feels it explains the game better than the old system. But you know, he’s one guy. It might be that some people will find it worse and some people will find it better.

Supposedly Anet tested it. This free weekend will give them the answers they need. I’m sure if they have to tweak it they will.

If they don’t do surveys on those free weekend accounts then they won’t get any answers. How can you find out what someone likes or dislikes with out asking? Only things the metrics will show is what they did and for how long. Not why.

The obvious metric is comparing the rate of conversion to paid accounts from previous trial periods. Obviously more detailed analysis is required to understand the causes behind any movement, but it’s a good first measure of whether the NPE is having the intended effect.

Its like saying the EotM is a great addition to the game because the metrics show tons of players there. Well when you make the rewards 10x better than the other wvw maps and one of the best farms in the game of course it will have the players. Its not because they like it though, its because they like rewards. If you switched the rate of rewards between the other WvW maps and EotM I guarantee you EotM would be empty compared to the other maps. They want the metrics to show how successful it is though. So they will keep EotM karma train and leave the other WvW maps untouched.
This is why they won’t do surveys. They don’t want the why because it will change the results of their made up metrics. The BS and metrics may work on the higher ups but the players are getting tired of it. With out the players there won’t be a game for them to make up metrics for.

I’ll just put this here to show that ANet do not rely solely on metrics (imagined or otherwise). It’s from https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Misconceptions-regarding-Level-gating/page/4#post4396936 if you want to read the post in full.

ColinJohanson.2394:

- Over a years worth of testing with new players found we were absolutely able to keep them both more engaged, and more likely to return to keep playing Gw2 as a result of the intended system.

Yenrah.8532:

All of the starter zones became a hugh boring tutorial. What has changed? Mobs aren’t dangerous anymore, so you don’t feel the need to learn how to fight.

People make a big deal about the changes to starter zones, but the NPE doesn’t stop you from biting off more than you can chew. I had some friends start playing during the free trial, and we were having some challenging fights above our level in Caledon Forest.

From what I’ve seen, the changes to the starting zones aren’t as sweeping as some people make them out to be.

Hannelore.8153:

Boss week was also not technically a part of LS besides Rox.

I’d like to see a citation for that, given that I only recall seeing statements that there was a story reason behind Tequatl’s increased power. Also, http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Boss_Week

Meglobob.8620:

Anet probably wasted a team working on this ‘new’ TP for 6 months…

This new TP is far, far worse than the old one.

All the old one needed was a few tweaks and it would have been great but Anet don’t do simple when they can instead waste loads of resources and balls things up!

That’s what they have been doing since GW2 came out, finding ways to make the game worse and wasting resources on useless projects that the player base is not interested in.

I disagree. I’m definitely seeing improved performance loading TP pages that I presume is because of the new browser engine behind the new TP UI, and I quite like the new interface…

The OP is complaining about “losing money” by placing buy orders at highest bidder prices instead of buying immediately at the lowest seller prices because the default buy price setting is highest bidder. Imagine the number of complaints we’d see if the default buy price setting was lowest seller instead.

In my view, the default buy price being set at highest bidder is the best option as that makes it a lot more difficult to for people to lose money if they’re not paying attention.

He just needs to cancel the buy orders (if they haven’t been filled) and pick up the money at the TP. If they have been filled, he can relist the items on the TP and could even make a profit.

Despite what you might want to believe given the general tone of the forums, there are players like myself who do care about and enjoy the living story, just as there are players who care about the features that have been recently announced.

Goatjugsoup.8637:

was wondering myself, had no idea americans celebrated labor day on the wrong day (its actually the 4th monday of october, at least if you are in nz lol)

It’s no surprise tho, they even spell it wrong.

:P

I’d hold judgement until we see it in action, but I’m thinking that the rewards you gain from every new level will compensate for any “dead levels” in a character progression sense.

I’m still very happy with the game, but given I’ve had to reduce my game time and become a much more casual player, the game still holds a lot of content for me to explore.

I bought my set of gem store armor (primeval) before the wardrobe was implemented, and it was a single use item. If I wanted to transfer the skin from one item to another item, I would have been required to spend a transmutation crystal to do so. If I transmuted another skin onto one of the items, I would have been required to buy the entire set again if I ever wanted to use the old skin again. I would also have to purchase another set if I wanted to use it on a second character.

I’m not going to complain about the current situation given it is a huge improvement on the previous situation and I was being charged to reapply gem store skins under the old system anyway.

Sariel V.7024:

I think Mental has a good point, one I can back up. It is really easy to fall into a rut of salving your soul and neglecting the rest of your life around you, which keeps you trapped in whatever mess may be depressing you in the first place. I’m not saying to quit GW, but do investigate other options of help or support so that this game doesn’t become the sole crutch keeping you standing. It’s a dangerous position :/

It’s a position I’ve been in myself, and it ended badly. I lost my job and was nearly made homeless because the escape that games offered from my depression also cut me off more from the outside world and from the people who could support me.

Thankfully, that’s all in the past for me, but I would advise anyone in the OP’s position to try to balance the amount of time they spend in game with staying connected with the real world.

Torsailr.8456:

From what I gather based on things they’ve said/done, the debuff can’t be removed from individual characters but they can disable it for everyone at the server level.

This. Gaile will have replied to an individual’s query about dishonor stacks, and from a CS point of view, they are unable to remove these stacks on an individual basis.

Obviously, the large number of people affected by the recent DDOS attacks prompted ANet to look at a server-side solution to resolve this for everyone.

I can agree with the price increase due to the account bound change combined with the higher level of gold present in the economy two years past launch, but additional colors should not cost additional gold.

The refund policy on this is also extremely stingy in comparison to the policy they adopted with dyes and gathering items, but I also think ANet could be concerned about injecting a lot of gold into the economy when part of the reason for increasing the cost would be to remove gold from the game.

My suggestion would be to charge badges for additional additional colours and grant those with multiple tags an additional colour for each extra tag and then give a refund for any leftovers.

ANet, please rethink your decisions in these areas.

Wonderly.1324:

Thanks everyone, for the replies and for explaining!
^_^

So, to be clear, when you make an exchange you put something in one box and withdraw from the other box (with Anet taking a cut). When you run dungeons, gold goes into your account but from thin air, not from the gold box. When you buy gems with money, the gems that go into your account are created and do NOT come from the gem box. So if you buy gems with money and then exchange gems for gold, you are putting new gems into the gem box and taking gold from the gold box (which consists primarily of other players’ gold, gold which they put in the box in exchange for gems created by other players’ money). I see!… I think? = p

Yeah, that’s pretty much it.

Another question for John:

What do you see as the main challenges/risks faced by MMO economies, and how well do you think GW2’s economy has fared against these?

If you already have the episode unlocked, you can replay the episode with your bf even if he doesn’t have it unlocked. He just won’t get any rewards or achievements without spending 200 gems to unlock it.

Fiontar, the content itself isn’t paywalled as you don’t need to purchase missed episodes if a friend has them and invites you into their group. The new open world content is also available at no cost to new/returning players.

It’s only the achievements and rewards that are locked behind the 200 gem fee.

Make friends with people in the maps as you play with them. The megaserver settings are intended to put you in the same maps as your friends, so use your friends list to join up with players who share your playstyle regardless of their server.

Like many here, I only have enough free time to log into the game a few times a week, so I try to spend my limited time doing things for fun. This can include:

Living story steps – definitely enjoying the new season, and I can progress the episodes in small pieces which is nice.
Dailies & Map completion/levelling – take an alt, head to a map they haven’t completed yet, and work on both the daily and the map completion.
WvW – usually on a weekend where I have a good block of time available, and I’ll often work on my dailies at the same time.

While I’d like to do dungeons and fractals on a more regular basis, I don’t feel comfortable committing to a group that does these given that I sometimes have to log off at short notice.

This is not an issue where Support can help unless you want a refund on the purchase of this stone. The people reviewing your ticket are not developers and can’t add a vendor to the asuran home instance.

Any grind associated with the living world is optional. I’ve yet to even bother attempting any of the associated achievements, but I’ve enjoyed the story without them.

Similarly, any stress you might suffer from with regards to grinding for lw rewards is self inflicted.

John Smith.4610:

There is almost no data that I cannot link together for analysis.

This week I created a table composed of multiple in game interactions that was larger than 800 billion rows.

I think I might be suffering from data envy… we complain when our users start creating queries that contain a few million rows.

John Smith.4610:

Mckeone.9804:

What kind of tools do you use to manage the economy? Did you develop them in house, get them from a third party, or is it just excel gone wild?

We have a big data solution to help me manage the obscene quantity of data involved. I have a mix of third party and proprietary tools, but one never fully escapes excel. I’m oldschool and have an unhealthy love for excel, though it has many limitations, so if I need to do more advanced statistics I need to use more serious software.

As someone who works in the BI/DWH field, I’d be extremely interested in any more details that you are able to provide about the tools you use, so I guess my question would be around the scope of the game data you’re able to access with these tools.

For instance, are you able to link data about how players spend their time in game with data about their “economic activity”, and thereby observe trends and patterns that might not be obvious otherwise?

Chuck Norris.4519:

Sadly you cant say anything bad about the story or in game content without people going right to – if you don’t like it quit – its sad people blindly accepting all the kitten week after week (more like 2 weeks) is why we never will see any improvements. Not trying to spit hate, I love guild wars the game the lore and the art style, and played guild wars 1 for years. but i at least don’t accept the flaws and claim its 100% good and anyone who thinks otherwise should uninstall. Really sad super fan boys are costing us the improvements and attention to the finer details that this game could use to become even better.

The problem I have with this statement is that (IMO) ANet have made improvements to the game since launch, so I can’t see how these “super fan boys” are costing the game.

Back on topic, if you want to show support for the good work that ANet have done with a particular episode, then feel free to buy gems and/or post your appreciation on the forums.