Guild Wars 2

Spiral Architect.6540:

@ Vayne: I was just ribbing you a bit… I couldn’t resist.

I tend to agree with you on most of what you posted there, though if you’ll permit me a slight digression, I did think Ember Isle was brilliant.

My concern, and I’ve posted this elsewhere, is that there’s been a lot of “rushed” content put out, yet many “standard” MMO features (guild UI refinements, LFG tools, TP UI refinements, etc.) remain unimplemented. There have been bugs which were reported back at launch which have yet to be addressed, yet we get lots of new, shiny (temporary) content. The new shiny stuff sells more games, though, so there’s a lot more incentive to create new content than there is to fix what’s already been released.

I’m not strictly disagreeing with your concerns, but the teams working on the living story content aren’t necessarily the same people who would work on some of the things you mention. Alongside the story content, we are also getting permanent changes to the game systems (e.g. laurels, WXP and ranks, guild missions, etc.)

We know that there is a team working on a LFG tool, and rewards are also being worked on, so it’s not necessarily the case that living story content is being delivered in exclusion to other work that’s needed for the game.

Well I’m enjoying the temporary content despite it’s limited window of availability. I do think there should be a way for newcomers (and others) to get a recap of “the story so far”, but I don’t think that access to the associated rewards/achievements should be fully available for all time.

The only part of the content that seems like a “cash grab” to me is the RNG boxes, but I’m happy enough to ignore those and just get on with playing the game and enjoying myself.

Alad QB.8904:

I still haven’t read any objections… just somewhat funny comments by people who don’t seem to care about this.

I don’t really object to autolooting, but I did find cause to make fun of your stated reason for wanting it added. I can actually see autoloot being useful for WvW where picking up loot is usually the last thing you’re thinking of, and circumstances may prevent you from doing it after a battle (e.g. because you died and had to waypoint to rez).

However, it’s less of an issue now that we have AOE looting, and as Vayne states, there are probably better things the developer time could be used on.

Why should I press keys at all? Enemies in a 10,000 foot radius should just die as soon as I point my camera at them, and drop precursors straight into my bags…

Seriously though, AOE looting is a nice quality of life improvement. Automatic looting just comes across as laziness now that we have AOE looting.

Seems to be working as intended to me. If you give players the ability to control map access to specific persons (or group) then also giving rewards opens up the potential for exploitation.

Sea of Sorrows has a high Aussie/Kiwi population, so you might like to try guesting there to see if you have more luck finding people to play with.

Other servers that might have more oceanic players include Isle of Janthir and Gates of Madness, so you could also try guesting to them if SoS doesn’t suit you.

I’m posting this from my phone, so I can’t easily find a link for you, but there’s some unofficial/leaked patch notes floating around that have everyone talking. If you find them, take them with a grain of salt.

kiwiburner.2186:

Well, except that Dragon Bash part 2 was Dragon Bash part 2. If you want to stubbornly argue this, at least call Sky Pirates Dragon Bash part 3 (except beware that the Dragon Bash festivities, decorations and Dragon Ball are all going to have disappeared, together with the hologram projectors and other Dragon Bash-related content, less the gem store item overlap).

Dragon Bash will continue till early July (ends on the 9th IIRC), so none of the event content will be disappearing when Sky Pirates is released.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

But people, there are RNG boxes for Sky Pirates.

They’re called Dragon Coffers.

Sky Pirates is simply Dragon Bash p2, just like Last Stand at Southsun was part 2 of Secret of Southsun. Just as those two steps shared RNGs, so too, will the Dragon Bash and Sky Pirates.

With all due respect, while I agree that the RNG boxes will be present in the form of dragon coffers, I disagree with the premise that Sky Pirates is part two of Dragon Bash.

While it falls under the auspices of Living Story, Dragon Bash is planned to be a recurring festival event. Yes, there were story elements present that served as an introduction to the upcoming Sky Pirates arc, but the main focus has been the festival activities. Despite the similarity with how the two Southsun episodes were structured, the crucial diference is that Dragon Bash will return next year, while Secret of Southsun won’t.

Vayne.8563:

Honestly this game could do with some form of AA (alternative advancement) similar to what you have in WvW for example. It isn’t gear grind, it doesn’t make THAT much of a difference, but it gives people somethiung to work for.

AA was good in games like AoC and Rift. It can work here too.

I agree. While the WXP system of advancement in WvW isn’t perfect, I do think it shows a willingness on the part of the developers to look at alternative advancement. I don’t know whether something like this is being considered for PVE, but I’m hoping it is.

stayBlind.7849:

Astraea.6075:

stayBlind.7849:

GW2 is less about acquiring gear, less about acquiring skills, and more about farming gold to buy items from the cash shop.

At least you can use in-game currency to buy things from the cash shop.

Yea, because doing actual in game things to acquire items is far more boring than just farming X amount of gold to buy it.

I agree that there should be more items that can only be acquired from playing the game, not from gold (or gems), but it’s not quite as one-sided as you make it out to be.

I do however like being able to purchase gem store goods and services without spending real money (especially as I’m between contracts atm).

Considering dragon coffers are a lot easier to farm than BLC keys, I’m not sure that the shift to special event boxes is due to the ability to farm the keys. (Admittedly, the southsun crates were not as easy to obtain).

As for the future, that’s hard to say, I suspect we’ll see more specialist RNG boxes, but I’d wait to see what they do for Halloween just in case they go back to using the BLCs.

stayBlind.7849:

GW2 is less about acquiring gear, less about acquiring skills, and more about farming gold to buy items from the cash shop.

At least you can use in-game currency to buy things from the cash shop.

I’m thinking that what we’re seeing with the dragon bash event may be a good indicator of how festivals will be different each year. That is, we currently have a month long festival, but there’s a story element happening at the same time. This way, certain elements of the festival can be repeated each year, but the story elements change.

As Vayne mentioned, transferring servers isn’t free unless you’re willing to delete all your characters. This might be your best option if you want to play immediately and you are okay with treating the time as a test run for when you start playing with your friends.

I think that even if you delete all your characters, you still get to keep anything you’ve got stored in your bank (which is account-wide), so the time doesn’t have to be a complete loss. Hopefully someone else can confirm this.

I like to use selective reading just like the OP too…

Snowmoon.1758:

Monocle
Players who face down the deadly Aetherblade Captain will have a chance at a new, stylish Monocle. This dandy piece of Headgear is combat-ready, tradeable, and full of sophistication!

Aetherized Rewards
Your journeys through the Aetherblade Retreat will earn you a chance for items like rare salvageable materials or a new infinite tonic recipe in addition to GUARANTEED rare item rewards. Enduring the trials of the Not So Secret jumping puzzle WILL win you a set of exotic shoulderpads.

Hopefully this illustrates that the new update will contain a mix of guaranteed and RNG rewards, so I don’t really have a problem with it.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

It didn’t explicitly say that there weren’t going to be RNG boxes – and it is my assumption that the Aetherblade weapons will be based on weapon tickets again.

I guess they will add “Aetherblade Airdrop Boxes” after the Rich Dragon Coffers go out of sale.

If you look at the page announcing the features, you will see that they do explicitly mention RNG boxes in the form of rich dragon coffers. Remember the dragon bash festival runs for a month, so the sky pirates content would have been out for at least 2 weeks before the rich dragon coffers are removed from the gem store.

Sadly the likely answer is because the rich dragon coffers will still be available for at least 2 weeks after this update goes live. Why add another RNG box to compete with one you’re already selling?

Even though the pickaxe was a limited time deal, I wouldn’t mind terribly if it returned as I’d probably buy another one. My preference would be for a new pickaxe with a new animation however.

There’s been some good points made in this thread, so I’ll expand on my earlier comments somewhat…

As a means of introducing a new (possibly major) npc, I feel that this cinematic cutscene was very close to perfect. I didn’t mean to suggest that all future cutscenes should be done this way, but I would hope that we do see this style used again where appropriate.

All I’d really like to see is a bit more variety in the styles of story telling that’s being delivered. There’s been some great use of game engine cutscenes in the Molten Facility dungeon, and I’m sure others have their own favorites, but the predominant style of 2 talking marionettes used in the personal story really didn’t work for me.

I took a quick look at the link and didn’t really see anything that is really informative for us as players. ANet will have much more accurate data regarding gem sales and what they are spent on, so it’s really of no use to them either.

As killcannon said, this survey can’t really be taken as accurate due to selection bias and we also have no idea if the demographic breakdown is a reasonable facsimile of the game’s population. I didn’t look for the original survey, but it is also worth noting that the precise wording of the survey questions can skew the results (though I’m not saying this is the case here)

I also loved the new cutscene, especially the film noir style employed in it as that really worked to set the mood. While it’s too late to go back and redo the personal story using a similar technique, I hope to see more like this in the future.

While I agree that more weapon skins would be nice, you did forget the skins from the Super Adventure Box.

While it was well advertised ahead of time that the fireworks were of limited duration, I did think that there would be a number of people who would miss it for one reason or another. I do like the limited duration events, but it does suck when you miss them due to RL issues.

It’s fine to ask questions if something seems off after a reasonable number of salvages, but complaining about a stealth nerf without a robust data set (in the very same update that provides a way to use ectos to generate dust) is a step too far.

@Buttercup: while it’s true that minis themselves are “gem generated”, the TP market for them is too divorced from the dollars to gems transactions to really back up your statement.

A mini collector could have obtained all the non-event minis without buying a single gem. Even discounting the tradeable minis, a mini collector could have used gold to purchase the required gems.

@Fyrehawk: Great post, and I suspect the reasons you outline are why the content update model has shifted from “more dynamic events” to the living story concept that is (IMO) starting to deliver on the idea of a changing world in a way that just adding more dynamic events couldn’t.

I personally think the game will have a good shot at lasting for a long time. There is a strong foundation with gameplay that is quite different from most MMOs and it has a visually stunning world that is rich in lore. There are areas that need work and improvement, but looking at the changes that have been made to the game since launch, I’m pretty sure that the devs aren’t finished with the game yet.

In some ways, I think they’re having to refine some of their initial post-launch plans (if not abandon them and start over) due to the reality of running a large MMO. I’m prepared to cut them some slack and wait as this game is still (for me) more entertaining than anything else on the market.

Navi.7142:

I will just keep in mind doing these pres only with my characters that are quick enough to run. That means ele, necro and ranger (and later thief) willingly will help, whereas my mesmer, guardian, warrior and engi will stay and throw a party. ^^

Guardian has 2 shouts that grant quickness (“Retreat” and “Save Yourselves”). They are what I use on my guardian to run from the pre-events back to the boss.

Resonance.4216:

Current event, run around in Lion’s Arch pressing F.

Then go outside and kill 300 mobs.

ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?

To appropriate a line from someone we all know… “you’re playing the game wrong”.

I started doing the event achievements like you described, then I realised that with the long duration of the event that it was ultimately pointless as most of it will be done just by playing the game as I normally do.

For instance, today I took my necro alt to dredgehaunt cliffs to gain some more levels and work on the daily. In the hour I spent playing there I finished the daily, gained 2 levels, killed about 30 holographic minions and had the wing cover drop from a mob (and I have no clue how many coffers I received).

The other good news is that the story part of this event will be kicking off very soon, so that should give you something else to do.

Anasurimbor.5763:

It’s been mentioned before, a google search will show, but I thought instead of necro-ing threads from other forums, I’d post it here.

Is there any way you could implement a function to purchase more than one of an item from a vendor?

For instance, I’m trading zhaitaffy for cupcakes, and it’s rather droll to single click to buy a couple stacks worth of taffy

Please, please, please implement this. It’s nice that the vendor has a confirmation box, but trying to buy any decent amount of cupcakes is so slow and painful as a result.

I usually do the monastery pre-event and will often head to the centaur area to help out there if needed. I sometimes have to use a couple of skills that grant quickness to get back in time to get some hits on SB before it’s killed, but I’ve never missed out on credit or paid WP fees as a result of helping with the pre-events.

Fox.3469:

Indeed, and it’s not just conspiracy theory, the tactics NC-Soft is using are actually forbidden in my country cause they fall under the false advertisement and gambling law (as it is stated that any object that is sold for real money must have the exact thing you pay for, or an accurate possibility of the chances, even our lotery has those chances(in very small letters) on them.) If i wasn’t a student i’d take em to court.

I hope you’re not studying law because you’d more than likely be laughed out of court. Is the sale of Pokemon or other collectible cards banned in your country? As much as I dislike the RNG chests, they are very much a digital equivalent of this sort of thing.

Back on topic, I have noticed that it is somewhat fashionable for people to complain about RNG in games. One game I played had people complaining about the RNG nature of combat and how some classes were overly dependent on the RNG gods to do decent DPS. In any part of any game where there is an element of chance affecting the outcome, you are almost guaranteed to find someone complaining about it.

I’m in ur cityz killin ur dragonz (and eatin the sweet candy lootz they drop).

Brave Sir Ryan.1240:

Personally I feel that patches should freeze the trading of related items for a few days. Give people a chance to see the change and adjust, instead of those who are at work/elsewhere during the day getting free money for so many patches.

This is such a bad idea. Freezing the dust and ecto markets for 1 or 2 days would be a huge inconvenience for the general playerbase. Yes some people make profits during the small window of opportunity post-patch, but good for them. (And no, I’m not one of them).

The sense of entitlement is strong with this one.

It was known well ahead of launch that the gem store was a prime feature of ANet’s business model for this game, so trying to make a distinction between B2P and F2P as the OP is doing is pointless. Gem sales provide ongoing financial support to the game beyond that given by making the initial purchase of the game.

For the record, I pre-purchased the digital deluxe edition because I was willing to support the company prior to the game’s launch. I bought a small amount of gems after launch to further show my support and because I could afford it at the time. In neither case did I expect further recognition or reward from my purchases, but I think it is a nice gesture that gem buyers have received a gift from ANet as thanks.

Geunyoung.2973:

Astraea.6075:

I can sort of understand why people would use crafting to help level their alts, but I’m not sure why people think it’s necessary to reach level 80 as fast as possible. The way this game is structured, there’s not a lot of content that requires you to be level 80 to participate, so I personally don’t see the point in racing to 80.

Well you do agree then, that there are content “requiring” level 80 to participate (Quotations only because, although said content can be done below 80, it would be much more difficult). Those content are what a decent number of players strive to work towards, therefore, would you say it’s wrong to want to get to that point as quick as possible?

I wasn’t referring to the fact that some content is easier at level 80 due to downscaling/upscaling mechanics, but to the small number of high level zones and dungeons. It seems to me that a lot of people rush to max level expecting a better experience than they can get while leveling but the game’s structure means that it’s not actually required to do so.

I can sort of understand why people would use crafting to help level their alts, but I’m not sure why people think it’s necessary to reach level 80 as fast as possible. The way this game is structured, there’s not a lot of content that requires you to be level 80 to participate, so I personally don’t see the point in racing to 80.

@War Siren:
It is my belief that the whole concept of “endgame content” is flawed, and furthermore that the design of GW2 is influenced by a desire to move away from this idea.

In my experience with other MMOs, endgame content is there to keep people playing once they have burned through the lower level content (or enough low-level content to reach max level). New raids, dungeons, gear, zones, etc. that are gated behind level (or gear) requirements that are popular for a while until the next round of endgame content is released.

I think that the devs are attempting to create game content that can be experienced at whatever level you happen to be. Yes, there are still areas of the game that are gated behind level requirements (zones and dungeons), but in general the philosophy seems to be to make content that can be enjoyed by as many people as possible.

Geotherma.2395:

Did the gems you used on that kit come from gold>gems or cash>gems? Tbh I can’t really give you a 100% sure answer ^^; But that was my experience, and seems to be others. Maybe there are other factors, some people didn’t mind if it was just 1 kit. If it does bother you, your always free to contact support and ask if you were somehow missed out because of their metrics. Couldn’t hurt.

Gems for my BLSK were purchased with gold not cash. I should have made it clearer that I received a replacement kit, so I’m happy even though I would have been okay without reimbursement as I only did about half a dozen salvages while the bug was active.

And yes, if anyone feels they should have received a replacement kit, it wouldn’t hurt for them to contact support and ask about it.

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

Thanks for this. Jon says it a lot better than I do. See, Guns, I’m not putting words into anyone’s mouths.

Yes he does. He says “Farmers good”. Maybe people can take that to heart. I doubt it though, people will see what they want to see….like politicians trying to push an agenda.

Perhaps it might help if you temper the “farmers good” message with the other statement Jon made in the same post…

JonPeters.5630:

When one activity emerges that’s order of magnitudes more profitable than anything else in the game, it forces everyone to either engage in that activity or get priced out of the economy.

I take his post to mean that while there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with people farming, it should be spread across multiple areas with no one farm spot far more profitable or easier than other farm spots. If you’re relying on densely packed areas with fast respawns or endless waves of mobs to mindlessly farm, then you can probably expect that area to be nerfed if it becomes popular due to the “easy” profits that can be made.

Geotherma.2395:

ArtC.1827:

Is there some other stipulation for the kit? I used a BLSK during the bug but haven’t received mine yet. I suppose my mail might be full.

I want to say that if you bought it with cakitten got reimbursed if you used it during the time period. But I’m not 100% sure, I spent around $35 doing my test, all kits were returned.

I’m pretty sure the kit I was using was a freebie from daily completion as I had another (partially used) kit I’d bought with gems sitting in my bank. The fact that I’d transferred this “bought” kit to my inventory while the bug was active and I was finishing up the uses of the “free” kit might have made me eligible for the replacement I received, but I don’t know for sure.

nexxe.7081:

Saying that inspecting gear/builds, is elitism, is wrong. By not having a useful feature, it’s producing bad players. You’re actually helping the community at large by promoting well-built builds and gear combinations. Why would anyone want the opposite?

The counterargument is that this would also restrict build variety and gear combinations to only a few possible builds for each profession. For example, I’ve yet to level a warrior, so all I can use to judge a warrior’s build and/or gear is what I’ve heard from friends or read on the forums. Giving me access to an inspection tool would only help me propagate this secondhand wisdom rather than let me engage in a discussion about the merits of a particular build.

Having said that, my preference would be for the ability to ping both build and gear upon request. I had good experiences in GW where people were able to give me advice using this feature and the voluntary nature of pinging information feels better than being offered unsolicited advice after being inspected.

My thought/suggestion would be the addition of a storybook similar to what was available in the original GW campaigns. This could serve as both a place to provide a running summary of the living story and a means of replaying some of the key instanced content.

Even though I only performed a few salvages with a (free) BLSK during the time the bug was active, I have received a replacement BLSK in the mail.

While I sympathize that this compensation doesn’t sufficiently cover the loss that some people suffered while salvaging was bugged, I would like to thank ArenaNet for making this gesture of apology towards the player-base.

Being asked to ping gear at least lets you know that the group is oriented towards efficiency so you can choose to join or not. An inspect feature takes that control out of your hands and will be misused more than it will be used appropriately.

I’ve noticed something similar on my guardian (hammer) and it seems to usually occur when the mob I’m targeting is really close to me. I find a short step back usually fixes it and my skills fire normally again.

I agree that this change is unlikely to materially affect the precursor market, but I’m not so certain that it won’t affect ectos. Remember that this change means that some people who weren’t previously spending time chasing world bosses will now be rewarded for in a similar fashion to those who do. I don’t have the numbers to judge how significant the impact might be however.

AnonEMouse.7932:

Even worse is that over 90% of the boxes had just various amounts of the 3 Southsun materials.. If I’d brought those with real money, I would have been SO peeved.

Read the description of the crates again.

An assortment of souvenirs from the Southsun islands. This chest contains Southsun crafting materials and a chance to get a wide variety of items such as shoulder skins, new boosts and convenience items, and a rare chance at new weapon skins and mini pets.

I’ve bolded the part where it states quite plainly what you can expect to get from the majority of these chests. I wouldn’t spend money on them myself, and I don’t buy the RNG chests, but it’s clear what they usually contain.

The "cap"will disappear very quickly. I’ve seen similar size blocks get bought up within a day or so for other goods and ectos are a high volume market.