Guild Wars 2

PopeUrban.2578:

GreyWolf.8670:

@PopeUrban: That argument is very tired. I could make banners two weeks ago. Now I cannot. I’m done with this as far as you’re concerned.

Yes. You can. Walk in to the guild initiative. Talk to the NPC. You now have a banner for favor.

Which NPC would that be? The Guild Requisitioner? He gives a message “This content has been temporarily disabled. Try again later.”

It’s entirely possible to hate individual pieces, processes, changes, or concepts without hating the whole of something. It doesn’t mean that someone who complains about parts of the game or changes in the game hates the entire game, nor does it mean that someone who loves and enjoys the game will never complain in the hope that improvement will be made.

More tabs would definitely be nice.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

SAB isn’t my cup of tea either; however, I’m not going to (try to) deprive those that do like it of its content. If Anet decides to bring SAB back, all well and good. Means I can take the time and catch up on other stuff.

I agree.

Kuzzi.2198:

Auralae.7482:

What’s missing? All the stuff I used to be able to build for my small family & friends guild that’s now buried behind a HoT paywall, materials, and player minimums.

What stuff are you talking about? Why do you focus on the negative instead of appreciating that you now have a kittening GUILD HALL that you can call home!

If you choose to view having a challenge that you need to overcome together as a guild in a negative light then it is only your perspective that’s hurting your enjoyment of the game. Where would the fun be if you were just handed a fully upgraded guild hall? I say take on this long term goal and enjoy every step of the way.

I don’t have a guild hall. I don’t have HoT, nor does half my guild. Most of all, I don’t have the ability to make banners or other things that I did have before Anet decided to remove them from the core game and put them behind a paywall. I’m sorry if you can’t understand that.

And don’t assume that I’m asking for a fully upgraded guild hall. I’m not. Honestly, I don’t care about a guild hall. I care about the things my guild used to be able to do and create that were taken away from a game I paid for.

Zaklex.6308:

Auralae.7482:

~Snip~
the lack of solo & casual content and delays on raids & legendaries (not that I’ll do raids or get the legendaries, but I just don’t like that they delayed things they advertised as part of the xpac), bugs, and this feeling that the focus on the game is to manipulate things into gem store purchases. All in all, I’m glad I’ve passed on buying because I still feel like Anet did some shady and manipulative things with this xpac.
~Snip~

None of the above statements are true, there is plenty of solo/casual content in the HoT maps, and your statements about them delaying Raids and Legendaries is also blatantly false. As a matter of fact they stated before the release date was announced that Raids would be released at a minimum of 2 weeks after HoT went live, in order to give people the chance to actually play the new content first. As for the legendaries, it’s a long process an anyone that expected to be able to get them right away was just dreaming…you have to remember that not only are you getting the content that was released on 10/23, but all future content as well(at least until the next Xpac), that will include the 3 – 6 new Raid wings per year(I’m going on the low to high side to be safe) as well as all Living Story 3(maybe even 4)…and other things(I believe there will be another Guild Hall as well). You’re not only paying for HoT itself(the Magus Falls maps), but also future content that leads into future expansions, so you need to look at the cost from that point of view(at least that is how you should be looking at it).

As for my own personal opinion: Absolutely not, and this is my reasoning behind paying for what I bought, not only am I going to get what is(was) released on 10/23, but also all content updates for the forseeeable future or until the next expansion comes out(should they do another one), that is what my purchase gets me, not just the content that was released on 10/23, but also all content being released after 10/23, for which I need to spend nothing more.

Raids were promoted to be “released shortly after launch” and we have yet to see it at 2 weeks past launch. Legendaries were confirmed to start at HoT release. Let’s not even get into the track record of how long “coming soon” things take. These ARE things they advertised as being part of Heart of Thorns and they are delayed. What about my statement is false? http://dulfy.net/2015/08/06/gw2-three-legendary-weapons-coming-with-heart-of-thorns/

There is a lack of solo and casual content in HoT, particularly compared to the core game, which was a comparable price at release. This expansion has a significant amount of content for larger guilds, larger groups, and progression. Even the open world content has quite a bit of feedback about not being easily solo’d and to take a lot of time to move across the map, get hero points, and complete event chains. Keep in mind that I do have 3 copies of HoT in my home currently that other family members have bought. I’m not speaking from a vacuum. Your opinion is different from mine. I could just as easily say your statement is false.

Are you saying there haven’t been bugs? Again, how is that statement “not true?”

“…this feeling that the focus on the game is to manipulate things into gem store purchases.” So a feeling is false? It’s a subjective statement that was related to why I personally don’t want to purchase HoT. Legendaries aren’t out, but new gem store outfits are. Means of earning gold have been nerfed, but you can always buy it with gems. More items in game and some buffs limited, but there’s bank/bag slots and boosters for you. Key farm was limited, but drops were increased…just not as much as as chest rate increases. Again, that’s okay because keys can be bought with cash too. It’s good to know that you can tell my that my perceptions are false. Again, I could just as easily say yours are false.

And yes, I DO feel like there were shady and manipulative things done. The biggest being their taking away of things like guild upgrades and putting them in HoT. Again, you are free to disagree with it, but it doesn’t make the fact that I feel that way false (which is what I clearly stated "I’ve passed on buying because I still feel like Anet did some shady and manipulative things with this xpac).

I’m sorry, but just because you may like certain things or find value in them doesn’t make all my statements false, nor does it cause me to find equal value in the content produced. I’m well aware that buying the xpac is paying for future content, and, if at a later date, I view enough content to be worth the price for me, then I will consider buying it. However, at this time, I don’t see it there.

You really don’t need to tell me how I should be looking at it. Here’s how I look at it. I have other games I can play, other businesses that can benefit from my money, and other things that can take up my time. Right now, HoT isn’t worth it for me.

Addendum: I would like it to be worth it for me. I would like to feel like the expansion offers more content that works for me as a mostly solo player who often gets on at off-peak times in 15-30 minute bursts or who often has to go afk. I would also like to feel like Anet offers things for small guilds and feel like they aren’t removing content simply to put it where they can get more money for it. I don’t have issues with gem store purchases. I’ve made several. I just don’t like to feel like I have to buy HoT to even continue getting the same things I have had since launch. I check the forum every day to see what changes might happen simply because I DO want to feel like it’s worth it for me to buy.

What’s missing? All the stuff I used to be able to build for my small family & friends guild that’s now buried behind a HoT paywall, materials, and player minimums.

Hmm. Complicated answer for me. In our family, we have five accounts.

My older teen pre-purchased and has zero regrets. He’s loving it.

My other kiddo pre-purchased and really hasn’t played it. I regret letting him spend his money on it and have considered getting it refunded, but it’s his money and his choice.

My husband didn’t pre-purchase, but did buy it this week. He’s neutral so far, although he would have preferred to get a character slot for veterans so he wouldn’t have had to delete a character.

I haven’t bought it on my two accounts. I didn’t pre-purchase because I don’t pre-purchase games and wanted to see what was actually delivered for the money. I kind of regret it simply because I can’t play with my family in content now, but I’m pretty angry about the fact that there’s no character slot for vets if you didn’t pre-purchase, the hobbling of small guilds and putting abilities they had pre-HoT behind a paywall, the lack of solo & casual content and delays on raids & legendaries (not that I’ll do raids or get the legendaries, but I just don’t like that they delayed things they advertised as part of the xpac), bugs, and this feeling that the focus on the game is to manipulate things into gem store purchases. All in all, I’m glad I’ve passed on buying because I still feel like Anet did some shady and manipulative things with this xpac. It’s sad for me because I’d happily give them money if they’d handled things differently. I’m still in a wait & see mode, but did reactivate some old accounts on other MMO’s, so I don’t know. This was the casual-friendly game that I have played on and off for 3 years with my family, but I’m concerned that it’s no longer for me.

12 total right now.

7 on my main account and 5 on my second account that I bought during one of the $10 sales.

DaniTheHero.6318:

I don’t want to sound mean but two people don’t make a guild. There’s nothing stopping you from just always being ina party toghether. The entire point of being in a guild is to join a group of people. Wether it’s a group of 10 people or more than 100 isn’t the issue. But two people don’t make a guild. And there is no justified reason to give two people a whole hall instance. So many people complaing about small guilds being unable to shine, but that’s the point. Guilds need to be massive and powerful. A group of 5 or less isn’t a guild, it’s a party. And even if you had the hall. Every upgrade costs about 300G minimum. You really won’t be able to advance much,rendering the hall useless for you.

Except two people DID make a guild and had access to things in the game, such as the ability to make banners and other consumables, which Anet ripped away and put behind a paywall and a big/gold materials sink. For three years, small guilds of less than 10 were able to keep progressing toward goals. Now, they have to go through all sorts of hoops, money, and materials just to get back what they had before.

I don’t mean to sound mean, but I hope you can understand why this is irritating.

To the poster who said there should be some kind of reward for being bigger, I don’t disagree. However, why should small guilds lose the ability to do the things they were able to do before HoT?

I have 5 people (6 accounts) in my guild, for the record. After three years, to be told we don’t really constitute a guild because we aren’t all ever on at the same time and to have things taken away leaves a bad feeling.

dreadicon.5840:

Some things to note: the cost of making a game programming-wise has diminished at about the same rate as the complexity has increased. Art assets, however, have increased, so yes, the game does cost more than it would have last decade.

That said, from what I have seen of the expansion thus far, the length of dev time, and comparing it to the base game at launch, we have about 1/4th the content all-told, 1/2 the content after factoring in quality vs quantity. The new zones are rich and deep, offering much more than previous maps. The initial and replay values are about double that of launch maps of similar scale (accounting for the amount of area packed into these). The quality is indeed much better, but even taking all that into consideration, I can honestly say that this expansion is not the same value as vanilla was.

An appropriate price, including the character slot for veterans, would have been $40, assuming this includes substantial amounts of content soon-to-come in the living world. $50 is too much, but it’s not as far off as I had feared, at least. I will be more critical of quantity in the future when it comes to GW2, and I believe many others will be as well.

This is in line with how I feel. Regardless, even at $50, it should have come with a character slot since there was a new class and that slot should not just have been for people who pre-purchased.

5 laurels was already more than 5 times too high before drops increased.

Shukriyya.7629:

SkyShroud.2865:

you should be honest about if you really deserve the guild hall, a guild hall that is as big as a city. a guild hall that can be claimed by 4.

I’m speaking for myself here but I’m pretty sure that others will agree: I don’t need and don’t want a guild hall that is “as big as a city” for my guild. I wish anet had designed smaller halls as well, halls that fit better for smaller guilds and are less expensive to obtain. Big guilds could still go for their big halls and smaller guilds could go for something that may not be as big but gives them the same functionality (access to consumables like banners, the ability to help their server in wvw with the +5 supplies buff, etc.).

This.

I have a guild. It is 5 rl people that represent my family and a close family friend. We never all play online at the same time. Frequently, there might be 2 or 3 of us on together. I don’t want to invite strangers to a guild. I ran a big successful guild in WoW. I don’t have any desire, or the time, to do that again. If I had other people I knew irl or from past games playing, I’d happily invite them, but they either left the game long ago or don’t see a point in buying HoT. We don’t want a big city sized guild hall. A small building would be sufficient and the ability to simply and reasonably keep creating things that we already had the ability to make before HoT came out.

To be honest, I’m irritated that things we could previously get were taken away and put, not only behind a paywall, but behind a huge materials sink and missions that will be difficult to do since there’s usually only one day per week where there are enough of us keeping the same schedule to get 3 on to do the small missions. Nor do I like the idea that we have to get allies to temporarily help us claim a hall, schedule out missions, and grind away for lots of materials, all just to get back what we had…the ability to create something that we could create before HoT.

A small house or hall for a small guild (at a smaller materials cost) where small guilds can slowly build up to being able to decorate, have access to a scribe, and create banners and other small upgrades or maybe a spot to do a very small (1v1 or 2v2) skirmish is something I would like to see.

I believe the OP is talking about the additional character slot for all editions to veteran players (purchased core game prior to Jan 2015) who pre-purchased, and not the slots that come with specific editions.

Draknar.5748:

If there really existed a fancy guild hall, deep in a jungle, that needed to be claimed from mystical beasts— the group of 4 friends isn’t the group that would be taking it. It would be the group of 50. The group of 4 friends would be taking a log cabin somewhere.

Honestly there should be guild halls based on guild size. A four man guild should only be able to attempt to capture a really small guild hall that is fairly easy to take, while the much larger guilds have access to the cream of the crop ones with giant vines and mordrem knights guarding it.

I don’t think that most small guilds would argue with that, as long as there was a means for them to earn access to some features/upgrades that other guilds have, even if a slow pace. We have a small friends & family guild. There’s not a desire for a huge hall, but it would be nice if there was a more feasible way to work toward a small guild house with potential for scribe, banners, a little decoration, and maybe a small 1v1 or 2v2 skirmish.

That would be all well and good if it worked. There are threads on this already. The boatman mentions Lunatic Inquisition, but there is currently no option to select to go there. It seems to be unavailable this year.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Did you absolutely have to create 2 threads for nearly identical statements?

This

Thank you to the OP for a reasonable, polite post with good feedback that’s been well-thought out and seeks to improve the expansion rather than taking a complete fanboi approach or a warble-garble rage approach. Imo, more posts like this are exactly what’s needed.

I’m getting really tired of the threads on both sides that are nothing more than a way to insult someone with a differing opinion.

I was in a “wait and see” mode because I didn’t feel there was enough content in HoT that was of interest to me to justify the price tag. My plan was to wait and see if it was more amazing than suspected or wait until the price dropped to about $30. If the reviews in the first days had been great, I think I would have gone ahead and purchased at full price. I have had a lot of hours of fun with the core game and don’t begrudge giving Anet money. I have two paid accounts of my own, plus 3 more for family members and we’ve made gem store purchases. Three of those accounts are over 3 years old and the other 2 from beginning of this year, so we’ve been playing a while. My kids did prepurchase HoT with their own funds to get into beta. One is mostly happy with it, although a little frustrated by the champs at hero point and some of the gates to content. The other really hasn’t done much with it. I’m sad he wasted his money on it.

On the other 3 accounts, we are definitely not buying HoT unless there are changes that make it worthwhile for small guilds (5 who might never all be on at the same time) and for people who like to solo or just get on and play for short periods at a time. I think the price still needs to come down too, since we’re back to $50 and no character slot for people who bought the core game.

I still plan to keep playing and am running Halloween content. However, with all the nerfs to non-HoT guilds, dungeons, salvaging, etc. I am feeling a bit jaded. Taking things away from players to try and force them to buy new content is a bad practice imo.

Your post (OP) nicely sums up several of my feelings.

displacedTitan.6897:

ITT: People who do not normally play MMOs. Most MMO Xpacks are mandatory for continuing to play the game AND they are full price (40/50$).

I guess there is a downside to GW2 pulling in players that are not normal to MMOs.

Wrong. Been playing MMOs since UO and experienced enough to know what’s worthwhile for me and what isn’t. There’s always something else available and the beauty of GW2 is that you don’t have to jump on the hype train to keep playing.

I haven’t bought it yet. I don’t know if I will. I was already feeling like the content isn’t worth $50 and, since the price announcement, it sure seems like a lot of content will be released “shortly after Heart of Thorns launch.”

I also have no interest in focusing on raids or fractals. I don’t have time for it. If I wanted to be raiding, I’d still be playing WoW.

Full disclosure, I have bought it for my kids because they wanted it. The other 3 accounts are in a “wait and see” mode.

I do not like the idea of the skins being tied to a profession. However, I do with there were alternate or more skin choices on legendary weapons. I wouldn’t mind a “legendary only” skin that can be crafted or bought in the gem store and can be used on a legendary weapon of the same weapon type in order to give a little more choice to someone who might want to keep their legendary looking epic, but isn’t a fan of the look or color scheme.

Astralporing.1957:

Auralae.7482:

Showbiz.9725:

Hey guys, someone on here said they run Teq and other bosses on more than 1 character? I thought you can only really benefit from killing a World Boss with 1 character per account?

They were correct. It’s by character and not account.

There are two components to the world boss rewards, one is once per day per account (small chest in the ui, over the minimap), one is once per day per character (the big chest on the ground). Sometimes there’s also a per-encounter reward (so, one you can get many times on the same char). It’s usually the normal champ box drop from mob (from those that do drop loot), but for teq it takes the form of battery defence rewards (blue, green and yellow dragon chests).

The person I was responding to was asking if you can benefit by doing with another character in a day. Teq = large chest and battery chests for each time you do it on a different character. I stand by my statement.

Edited because I’m incoherent before coffee.

Showbiz.9725:

Hey guys, someone on here said they run Teq and other bosses on more than 1 character? I thought you can only really benefit from killing a World Boss with 1 character per account?

They were correct. It’s by character and not account.

Tequatl, because you can never have too many spoons. Also, wavejumping and being launched into the air are endlessly entertaining for me.

Linken.6345:

Doggie.3184:

I did a pug map few days ago that burned like half his HP bar in one burn phase and defense HP bars barely budged at all.

That is not possible since you can only burn down from 75-50 then 50-25 then 25-0

That said did Teq today 2½ hours ago joined map 10 mins before and had no problem with downing him.

10-15 min prior usually seems to be fine. It’s the 5 minute mark where I usually see way more chaos and people who just don’t even seem to care if turrets/hills/boats are covered and gives it a chance of being tougher than needed.

Teq is the same as always (I’ve done 3 in the last 24 hours). The only time I’ve seen defense phase fail is when people don’t stomp grub holes or if they leave too early. Lately, I’ve seen a lot of people bailing at the 40 second mark when there are swarms of mobs up, including champs or abominations.

And as one poster mentioned, joining maps at the 5 minute prior mark is usually a good chance of ending up with a hot mess of people who think they can skip defense organization and phone it in, so if you weren’t there early, that could be part of the problem.

Dash.9340:

Due to the new scribal salvaging use for dyes

Unsure what this is. Info, please?

Everything but Charr. As much as I want to like them, the clipped and stretched armor, bowed knees and hunched back make me unhappy. It’s such a shame because it’s a great race.

Based on the number of characters, I guess my order of preference is:

Sylvari (3)
Asura (3)
Human (2 – not counting name holder or key characters)
Norn (2)
Charr (1)

Number of Charr that I’ve created and deleted: About 6. The armor bothers me so much.

Halan.7931:

What do I do?

Tend your garden and grow it.

HAZAK.3706:

So it has come to my attention that very few people play Charr in comparison to other races, as can be seen on http://guildwars2viz.com/ (data website). I couldn’t find female to male ratio but I’m guessing it’s something like 5:1?

That site shows 14% Charr, 15% Asura, 15% Sylvari. So, three races are pretty much equal in representation. Norn is not much higher. Yes, human has a large representation, but they also represent the race that is the same as player race and the one that has the least problems with clipping, stretching, and proportionate size of weapons and armor.

It also shows 37% female characters & 63% male characters. I’d think that Charr gender would also reflect those percentages or maybe even a higher percentage of male.

Blair.3796:

imsoenthused.1634:

gitflap.9031:

Better question is why does a tree have tits? Do they produce sap?

As for the Sylvari body types, I’m pretty sure it has to do with them being born from the dreams and thoughts of other sentient races that the pale tree absorbed. The real question isn’t why they have genders, but why aren’t there sylvari shaped like charr, centaurs, asuras, etc. The lack of centaur body types is especially strange when you consider the influence Ventari had on the pale tree.

To elaborate, as I understood it, Sylvari don’t actually have genders, and they can’t reproduce. They are created by the Pale Tree to resemble other races (i.e. humans, not sure why no centaurs), hence the male-female gender appearance split.

I’d assume due to Ronan.

imsoenthused.1634:

Because a lot of people try to turn them into generic cutesy elf substitutes rather than the dragon spawned plant aliens that they are. So they pick the most “human” faces over and over again.

Mine:

To be fair, the whole dragon spawned plant aliens thing wasn’t common knowledge 3 years ago.

Oxidia.8103:

Bacause 3 years ago that face was the most appealing to me, there weren’t so many options back then.

I have 2 female sylvari. One was created pre-launch/early start and she has that face. At the time, it seemed like the one most able to be customized by sliders and with the least amount of bizarre shading at the forehead. Some of the faces almost looked like pasted on masks to me. She was also based off an old wood elf character from a pen & paper campaign of long ago, so I definitely wanted a more elven type face. The other was created less than a year ago and has a different face that’s a little less human. My next one is planned as a heavy armor class and will be very tree-like with inhuman face.

Dreamslayer.7659:

There is a lot of anxiety in map chat over the unavoidable results of the bug.

An official statement on how players should handle this and what we should or should not do would be very helpful.

Was in Lion’s Arch map chat when Gaile was on. Word is to just don’t open bunches of additional chests or repeat dailies. In other words, don’t exploit it.

I bought my first two copies of GW2 as a pre-order for early launch so my husband and I could play together. Since then, I have added three additional accounts (one for each of my kids and an additional one for me). I have bought character slots and other things with gem purchases. I have also taken breaks from the game for well over a year. I am a sporadic player. When I do play, it’s often with members of my family. My life is at a point where I am hopelessly casual, and I’m fine with that. I don’t care about PvP or running with a big guild (been there, done that in WoW), so there’s content in HoT that doesn’t entice me.

It doesn’t matter to me if someone else perceives $50 as a bargain for the hours of entertainment. I care about what I perceive as worthwhile. An expansion for each member of my family and a character slot to try the new class would be about $250 (all of us have maxed slots) or a couple hundred and deleting some characters. Yes, the game provides hours of entertainment, but so do other things that we enjoy. My oldest kid and I have gotten a lot of hours from an $80 box of Battlecon, and we didn’t even think twice about Kickstarting $175 in pledges for their new offering because we love the series. My fervor for GW2 currently isn’t that strong though, and I can still do a lot of content with my family without the expansion. So, at the $50 price point with no character slots, it doesn’t seem worthwhile to me. At a lower price or with things I perceive as having more value, it does. At $50, I might buy one copy. At $30, I’d buy at least 2, but probably 4.

For me, it’s not about entitlement or what other MMOs cost, but about where I currently spend most of my limited free time and how I want to spend my money. Right now, GW2 hasn’t been enticing me to do much beyond log in or maybe run an occasional Tequatl. My kids aren’t logging in at all. From what I’ve seen of HoT, my interest is peaked, but not enough to spend $60 or $50 and a character deletion to check it out. It’s not about trying to get something for nothing, but simply what is worth my time and money. Maybe more info on HoT will pull me away from other things or make it seem worth $50 for a game that I’m occasionally playing. Until I know more, I’m passing.

I wouldn’t consider mesmer fast/mobile. Thief definitely wins if that is your main goal. Also, mesmer is not fun for many people to level with the trait changes since you don’t unlock key class-defining traits until late in the leveling process. It didn’t bother me, but I’ve seen complaints. I find mesmer lots of fun. If the engineer is a problem, I think mesmer can be pretty flashy with effects too, so that could be an issue for your computer.

I just wanted to mention that with mesmer, you may not want full zerker, but assassin gear mixed in to get crit to 100% for reflects if that’s your main role. In general though, for most PvE content, full zerker or close to it is meta.

I would love to see a title for completing all the jumping puzzles. A mini is a cute idea too.

All ages, from pre-teen to AARP members.

serenke.4806:

Because while Faren’s speedo would be fine, Kasmeer’s bikini would cause an immediate uproar from every activist, self-proclaimed women’s rights prophets and i’m sure even more. Everybody knows that video games are a cesspool and they turn females into objects, yadda yadda yadda.

Why would it? Put a rear drape off the back of the bikini and its pretty much like several of the female armor skins in the game. At least a bikini makes sense, since they are supposed to be skimpy.

phys.7689:

Auralae.7482:

The trait system is horrible. I hit 80 with my first non-grandfathered character, and I now have no desire to level any newly created character under this system. It’s not fun at all. I’m a person who would happily buy character slots and level characters over and over, but not with this system. I have no plans to buy HoT or level a revenant without a good fix to the trait system, the personal story, and the equally bad NPE.

like i said, i sincerely doubt they want the current system in place for hot, which will have players making new charachters.

The real problem is while a new trait system is almost assured, it seems unlikely that it will actually be a good system.
best case scenario, its relatively painless. But that doesnt mean its actually good, or improves the leveling/progression experience
the first system was fairly uninspired, but it was also fairly painless.

I’m scared of the way they will “fix” things, considering the way the “fixed” the personal story into a jacked up mess and “fixed” the previous trait system and leveling experience.

The trait system is horrible. I hit 80 with my first non-grandfathered character, and I now have no desire to level any newly created character under this system. It’s not fun at all. I’m a person who would happily buy character slots and level characters over and over, but not with this system. I have no plans to buy HoT or level a revenant without a good fix to the trait system, the personal story, and the equally bad NPE.

Thanks. I’d actually triple checked that I had the right components (wiki) and pulled all the dust types into my pack to be sure, along with tiny and delicate and all dust would gray out the minute I moved both tiny and philosopher stones into forge slots. I logged out and back in, then it worked. Having pretty noticeable lag and other weirdness in game, so I’m wondering if that was messing with me.

In fact, it did this post as two posts. So yeah. Something odd is going on with me today.

RoseofGilead.8907:

Auralae.7482:

mtpelion.4562:

Promote them to the next tier up.
Repeat to top tier.
Use to craft exotics.
Forge for Precursors.

Can they still be promoted? I tried tossing the dust, snowflakes, and philosophers stones into the forge but the forge button remained grayed out.

You might be using the wrong dust or the wrong snowflake. It’s shimmering dust and delicate snowflakes (plus the tiny ones) that you need.

mtpelion.4562:

Promote them to the next tier up.
Repeat to top tier.
Use to craft exotics.
Forge for Precursors.

Can they still be promoted? I tried tossing the dust, snowflakes, and philosophers stones into the forge but the forge button remained grayed out.

Since megaservers were introduced, server only matters for WvW. LoudIntrovert has given good advice. You can also try these Tarnished Coast forum to try and hook up with a TC based RP guild or players.

http://forthetoast.com/
http://www.guildwars2roleplayers.com/forum/m/2737230/viewforum/1198772

Grind for gold and buy them or be prepared to park an account full of 21-35 alts at a jumping puzzle or take 21-35 alts through all the Lion’s Arch jumping puzzles and any other easy ones in appropriate zones daily. With 10 puzzles per day, you’re looking at about 10 silver doubloons per week.