Guild Wars 2

Looks reminiscent of Paragon armor from GW1. Very nice tho.

I’m very curious if there are skins that were made and never made it into the game because of the ridiculously low drop rate coupled with limited time RNG chests.

Chief.5928:

I don’t think the Karka would appreciate desecrating their dead. They could start petitioning or protesting in the streets of LA.

Now I so totally want to see karka in LA with picketing signs and speech bubbles in their gurgly language, marching around the lion statue.

kokocabana.8153:

F&F has taught ANet if they release it slowly over 3 and a half months, they get complaints of players missing out on things because they couldn’t log in for 2 hours during that time. If they have things progress each week and change, then even more players will complain that they miss out.

What? A month per segment isn’t enough time for a player to log in and take part in the activities? Especially considering that content from Month 1 was still accessible during Month 3? Sounds like this is a game those players really don’t care to play.

Granted, the 2 week span for the dungeon finale was a bit short, but I suspect any player that cared about finishing off the content for the story OR the shinies at the end could’ve found at least 1 hour to play during that 2 weeks.

I was thrilled to hear about skins offered for Wintersday… until I saw them. They were horrible. No particle effects, no shininess, just stupid flat wood and colored inlay. Bleah. Boring and not worth gems.

SAB skins were done well — took effort to obtain if not by luck and they look frikkin’ sweet.

People want shinies and they want to know that it’s special to someone other than them. I still admire seeing others with hard-to-get gear with splashy FX, and it drives me to want to play more if I know I can get it for myself without spending $100 cash to get it. Tempt me to gamble, though, and you’ll only get an earful.

I think all these complaints have at least some validity that players are discontented with the gambling option Anet seems so fond of promoting. Happy players stick around to spend more money. Those who feel gypped will go elsewhere and spend no more money here. It might be a quick sale, but it’s a long term loss for player retention.

Then again, it costs them pretty much nothing to add these into the game, so I guess “Hey, free money!”

Bubi.7942:

Dunno, I got 3 rares within 90 mins, and I wasn’t even farming (did JPs and stuff). So it worked out for me:)

Remember, Anet has already stated that MF doesn’t work on chests. It only applies to monster kill drops.

Can’t say how much I’d love a swimsuit for any of my toons, any race and gender. It’d just be cool to have the option of lounging in the sun like that.

(Of course you just KNOW I’m gonna stick it on my female norn and leave it there. She’s hot. Finally get to show off her tats, too.)

I’ve been increasing my participation in open world group events, specifically the ones with chest rewards, in hopes of increasing my chances for rare and exotic drops. I’m not a terribly good player, but I can generally hold my own for the most part. Events like Jormag tend to smash me to pieces, though, and I get downed often enough to find myself getting rezzed by many helpful other players. (Thank you all, by the way.)

It seems when I do very poorly — getting downed at least twice — I tend to get blues and greens from the big chest at the end. If I do fairly well and protect myself effectively downing only once or not at all, I seem to get at least one rare from the chest. Exotics are always elusive for me, though, and I’ve only gotten maybe 3 from any chest since I started GW2 in August.

So does getting downed or defeated affect chest rewards? Anyone else seem to notice this trend?

Stories within games are designed and/or weighted to help you succeed in order to get to the end of the story. It would be far more difficult (not impossible) design-wise and much more rewarding to give the player an option to be a villain or a nobody. It would exponentially increase the scope of and work in crafting the game, though. KotOR did it very well, although they didn’t have to balance it for an MMO. (Sorry, I haven’t played SWTOR.)

Also, there are other large stories to be told in Tyria, and Trahearne may become only a bit player in those tales, if anything at all.

dinominator.9862:

But is an intangible thing taxable? Gems are neither real nor services. And since they are intellectual property of ANet and always will be, there’s no real transfer of anything for the money.

Think of gems as gift certificates — a placeholder for a pending exchange. A gift certificate to a retailer or service provider is taxable, or services provided from the GC can be taxed against the GC value. And since gem-purchasable items can’t be taxed, the final real money sale takes place in buying the gems. That’s where the sales tax would take place.

And paying for digital goods is basically buying a service. You’re paying to play the game or add service or value to it in the form of virtual items or enhancements, a categorical equivalent to paying labor charges on having your car fixed. It’s certainly taxable.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

This is why I don’t like the current system: it forces you to choose whether to loot, rez, fight, or run.

I try not to worry about disappearing loot: it’s the same as not tagging a foe at all, in that I don’t see the drops.

Really? Wooden chests appear at your feet when they show up and it’s a choice to hit your skill key or “F” first? Even so, how troublesome is it to, say, dodge-roll then run back and hit F?

I was the n00b who got an Abyss dye from an unidentified dye random world drop and used it before I checked TP prices. “Ooo. I don’t have that one yet.” click-click.

DeathLust.6579:

Suggest finding new friends as well.

This.

The amount of content added to GW2 far exceeds what was added to GW1 in the same time frame. Just because an individual doesn’t care for a particular content patch (I avoid most PvP stuff outright) doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply to the discussion. In GW1, I didn’t get into Sorrow’s Furnace stuff until well into Year 2. And I never finished the titan quests because I hated PUGs, and henching it was painful and ineffective.

I love the idea of a living story where the world changes constantly, so newbies may not be able to experience what happened before but can still hear/read about it as history to a living world. Still, this can alienate new players from feeling like they’re getting the “full” game. Fortunately, nothing’s been eliminated yet in terms of ongoing accessibility. The ancient karka might be dead, but that hasn’t changed anything significant.

I just hope they don’t decide to go all Cataclysm and remake the world due to the story. It was bad enough knowing I couldn’t go back to visit Pre-Searing with my beloved elementalist main (Shing Jea Island and Istan just weren’t the same), I don’t need a repeat in this new beautiful world.

And you’re entering those locations via the F&F instance marker (sparkly yellow floating star)? Not the regular “gateway” instance alert (by approaching the door)?

During all my runs, Braham dies midway thru phase 1 of the boss fight and stays dead through phase 1. He tends to die pretty early in phase 2 also. We’re always too busy rezzing each other and dodging AoE to rez him too. :P

Have you followed up with Rox and Braham in their respective city locations?

Miku.6297:

Quick question about the bosses, are you going to be fixing the berserker end fight? It’s sorta easy, and feels almost bug/exploit if you all stack right inside him after the firestorm dies. The only attack he can hit you with being the rocks falling from the sky makes it a bit boreing:(

Yeah, we almost had a party wipe, but one guy was able to tank him and finish him off by standing at his feet. Seems like an exploit to me. I was glad not to have to redo anything in that run since it would’ve made me late for work if I had, but probably needs to be fixed. Then again, this dungeon’s around for 2 weeks or so, so is it even worth the attention?

This is my kind of dungeon. Pretty straightforward and lots of variety, plus mithril and ori nodes to farm with my wonderful flaming pick. And as others have said, I pretty much jinxed myself with Braham when we got to the final boss encounter. (He still owes me a Coke.) Best part: the whole run took ~45 minutes with a PUG which was easy to form.

Just wish this one wasn’t disappearing so quickly.

Didn’t want to have to, but I think I’ll be buying some Gems with cold hard cash fairly soon.

Still bugged today. Would be nice to check on this.

I haven’t gone to lengths to see how much similarity there is between the two games’ respective terrains, but I haven’t noticed much, if any. Obviously, 250 years worth of weather would have changed things all over, but the rising of Orr didn’t flood everything, and even in the real world, castles don’t decay to dust on their own in the space of a couple centuries.

Anyone catch a glimpse of the old Tyria as they run around the countryside? Point me there to reminisce, please?

Very generalized question: What’s the average time for a run through [dungeon name goes here] in [path name goes here] mode?

I’m a family man with very limited game time available to me, so I’d like to know ahead of time how much time I need to plan for on a specific dungeon run. I haven’t finished a single one yet, so I’ll be starting with Story mode on all of them, but I’d like to know the different paths too.

Base time estimates on what to expect for a random PUG with widely varying player skill levels. Thanks in advance.

Speaking as a very casual player who doesn’t have time to wait for PUGs, soloable story mode for dungeons is a necessity for me. The dungeons take long enough for a family man who’s able to get online sparingly, I can’t afford to wait a 1/2 hour for the PUG to fill up.

I haven’t completed a single dungeon yet and am at the end of my personal story (finally). I’d prefer to see the Destiny’s Edge story from the beginning if possible, but I guess I’m willing to run Arah with a PUG just to finish the personal story and maybe start leveling an alt.

Please, Anet, fix this soon. You said you’d make the game everyone could play their own way.

I’m guessing that Jormag will attack when the North Shiverpeaks open, Kralkattorik will come when the Crystal Desert opens, and Primordus will be found in the Ring of Fire islands. Fairly obvious maybe, but I’m betting that new dragons will only be available with expansions.

I have no problem with paying for good content. I just don’t like being told “the only way you can get this sparkly item here is to gamble at it.” That’s not good business, that’s fleecing suckers.

As for comparing cash shops: yes, GW2 has more options and cooler stuff all around. But GW1 was all about purchasing an item or upgrade. GW2 doesn’t guarantee that, which is entirely my point. And at least I used to be able to wear costumes while I fought. Here, you can’t adventure in town clothes which is the Lion’s share of apparel in GW2’s cash shop. Most of the other items mentioned are gambling tickets.

Maxed at ~12g, currently only have 2g on-hand and maybe 6g in the bank. I have no idea the worth of my collectables, I just keep ’em in the bank until I refine/use them.

I’ve always been poor in comparison, but I only play about 5-6 hrs a week. Never do dungeons ‘cause I don’t have the time.

As others, I’m far less bothered by the randomness of the various lottery tickets in the Gem Store than I am about Arenanet’s desire to continue putting new ticket styles in the Store. I’ve gambled a few times and lost every one, but I knew that going in.

The problem I have is that, as others have said, I don’t even get the option to get one skin in the end because they don’t even offer the certainty of it for a premium. $10 for that cool new sword/bow/focus skin? Maybe I will this time. $5 for a batch of chances? Pass. (Pulling numbers out of my butt here, so bear with me.)

The cash shop on GW1 was awesome. Spent lots o’ money there to get what I wanted even knowing it was just a costume. The more I’m told by Anet that GW2’s cash shop is ultimately a crap shoot, the less I’ll spend. I might eventually find something else to play. And that would make me very sad since all the GW1 cash I spent I knew was going into making GW2 a great game.

C’mon, Anet. Stop gambling your players away.

In another online game I played for many years, the developers understood that they couldn’t test all gameplay systems extensively on their own, so early on they instituted an exclusive reward for those who reported bugs which were repeatable and potentially game-breaking in some way. The reward was a badge of honor for the recipient who could display their prize to all onlookers. The reward was personally issued by the developers as a thanks for helping to improve the game and prevent mass exploitation or the need for a roll-back.

Instead of penalizing players for accidentally finding an exploit they might think is their only way to prosperity, maybe putting a positive spin on their find by thanking them for doing something the devs missed by giving them an exclusive skin or something would endear the playerbase to help out more.

…unless this is already the case and I just missed the memo.

A few other details:

I rarely text chat because I just forget to look at the chat window. And due to other constraints, voice chat is not an option for me.

I haven’t tried much PvP or WvW, but I’d like to more. SPvP is not for me. Guild events might be cool, but as I said before, my time is not my own, so I can’t attend something that conflicts with my schedule.

Standard “looking for” post here. Been playing mostly solo since headstart days except where I can team up on the fly. I like to get involved in any content that can be finished in an hour or less since my time is also my wife and kids’. Usually also play early in the morning since the kids are still asleep.

Still have some influence consumables to benefit an active guild that’ll keep me around for a long time.

Mail me in-game since I rarely check the forums here.

I really think Anet should preload this kind of stuff over the course of a week. Then they just flip a switch to activate it and bam, we’re there.

same here. waiting for Guffman Superman … download. Yeah.

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

These precursors need to be a bit more distributed.

Couldn’t disagree more. What, because someone else got extra lucky with the RNG, they should spread the wealth to someone like me who didn’t get a precursor? or Anet should rewrite the code to be more “fair”? Entitled much?

Drauger, I didn’t say they “solved the issue”. I said they’ve kept the issue alive to resolve it long after other game companies would find it justifiably ignorable. I think it’s a credit to Anet that they don’t just drop the issue and cut their losses.

As for their solution, my personal opinion is that it’s a decent solution. I don’t care that others got 2 rewards (some did through just playing the event). If everyone who participated in the event gets a karka chest, I won’t complain that others got more than me.

I also got a chest this morning. Contents:

exotic ring L74
exotic shortbow L74
exotic acc L80
20 slot bag
rare axe

very happy. Kudos, Anet! What other MMO keeps an issue like this alive to resolve weeks after the furor has died down? It’s why I’ll keep playing GW2 for the foreseeable future.

blackysharky.7581:

Step 1) Make Karka Acce. & Karka Bag & Karka Chest undestroyable.
Step 2) Make NPC in Lions Arch which will warp you to an personal instance map.
Step 3) Check if Account has Karka Acce. or Karka Bag or Karka Chest and at least 1 Level 80 Character.
Step 4) If Yes (Has Bag or Acce. or Chest or doesn’t have an Level 80 Char.) -> Deny Access, else send to Instance.
Step 5) Spawn Event Chest in that Instance so you can loot it.
Step 6) ???
Step 7) Profit

There may or may not could appear more steps during this process, like still everyone is mad, or everyone finds a way to abuse this, or the unlikely one, everyone will be happy.

What about those of us who were upscaled to L80 and would have been able to receive a reward?

Seems reasonable to me just to check an account for karka kill count and a flag on whether they opened the chest at the end for those complaining that they got disconnected. This would give you a pretty massive chance on the reliability that a person was participating in the event at least.

As for compensation… I don’t know what would be fair or reliable. Can’t just hand out rares and exotics to everyone who asks for them. I think the bag should be a given, but the other shinies?

I personally would love another crack at the chest without the 2 1/2 hour effort which I’ll never have time for again. (Seriously, my wife was pretty miffed I avoided the family for almost the whole day.)

Count me among the masses who got disconnected before the end. A 2-3 hour tour of watching 5 or 6 skill buttons pulsing while I got rubber-banded for several minutes before instant death was less fun than most other things I’ve experience in GW2.

Don’t get me wrong. I love this game, pretty much everything about it. Even my lack of shinies from the Halloween event was not disheartening since I shot myself in the foot over that.

But avoiding my family for half the afternoon on Sunday to suffer a lag-fest of epic proportions and miss out on the shinies at the end left a little bile in my throat. What to do, ANet?

I really want that fountain back now. :/

missed out entirely on the MK dungeon due to accidentally deleting my game install Sunday. Took 3 days to re-download. I’m disappointed, but I’m not upset because (a) I’m just trying to get a pretty for my character, not for my house, and (b) I’m not alone in my lack.

Tried 4 or 5 times, then said “nope, I’m’a farm some more candy corns.” Been happy since.

Oh yes, and the emote for quickly overeating candy corn literally made me LOL for at least 5 solid minutes while I was alone in my bedroom. Kudos, ANet.

Me? I had the misfortune of accidentally deleting my game install on Sunday around 1:35 pm Central. Means I had to wait through 3 days of re-downloading to pop into Tyria again.

Regardless, I’m tremendously enjoying most of the festivities. I love the candy corn nodes scattered about and rush right over to mine whenever I see one pop into view. Same with the haunted doors. Lots of fun. Also got my Master Carver achievement on the casual side which makes me happy since I lost so much time.

My biggest disappointments are the extremely low drop rate of the rare skins on BL and MK chests and the MK dungeon, which I largely missed due to the aforementioned reinstall. So, I know the skins are rare, but when I pony up actual money to get my chance, I guess I expect more. I’m not the kind of gamer who can grind anything in an MMO since my time is precious with a job and family that take priority. But I still like pretties in-game too.

Overall, I loved the experience. My preferred holiday is Wintersday anyway, so I’ll probably put more effort in then. Greatly looking forward to the big update in ~15 days.