Guild Wars 2

Menadena.7482:

Please be a real mac client, please be a real mac client …

[Oh, and to PC fans: our ‘beta’ version (which we have had for years) is NOT a mac client, it is a PC version running on an emulation layer. Emulation is why macs have a bad rep in the gaming community.]

We know. Blame Apple for not encouraging game development for the Mac. Bootcamp was a great idea for gamers while it lasted. Now Mac and Linux users will be stuck in emulation hell from now on unless a developer acknowledges Mac and Linux platforms on day one or cross platform tools support those platforms as well as the PC.

Sorry I had a point by point response but hit the length limit so here’s the short version.

MMOs are not static games. Never were. You can’t expect your awesome build from the first month remain as awesome three years later. Most of the changes you are complaining about were improvements.

The wardrobe let us keep those skins that would have been lost or needed to be purchased for multiple characters.

Town skins were a stupid idea to start with, outfits are much better.

The trait system rehash fixed a horrible mistake that we suffered with for a year. The fixed the personal story and the other vet issues with the NGE are noticeably better.

Yes what they did with fractals is unforgivable and we can only hope they don’t try another phase introduction until they are 100% sure it’s done.

This latest restructuring allows them to expand the game’s professional system in the expansion with specializations. It’s like starting the game all over again to figure out what works and what doesn’t. It’s only an issue if you cling to the past rather than embrace change.

Lucius.2140:

Behellagh.1468:

Character collision is normally handled on the client side. When one is detected a separation movement vector is generated and send to the server as if the player generated with the movement keys. So that’s not a problem.

The problem is comes with passages and doorways. City of Heroes had player/npc/critter collision and you could jam up doorways and it was a real problem at times. Pathfinding crowds is one of those game problems that haven’t quite been solved in a generic enough way to be copied and used across game development. It’s a big issue with RTS gaming and while it’s loads better than say the first Warcraft, it would need to transfers agency from players to the server for movement resolution which simply isn’t viable for an RPG/FPS/MMO because we don’t want to give up control of movement.

It causes more problems than it solves. Imagine the outcry if a party wipe happens because a choke point gets, well choked, because players and pets get jammed up allowing mobs of critters to take advantage?

Collision with only enemies?

We have that already, sort of, if you leave it on. A critter you hit becomes “corporal” to you.

Melee Attack Assist — Enables collision detection between your character and your target (e.g. making the target “solid”) when you are both directly facing each other, preventing you from running through them so that you stay in melee range.

I would not be surprised if players, especially speedrunners toggle this off so they can run past mobs easier.

I’ve never wanted to purchase bag slots, not for the price but the fact they are soul bound. Allow me to move them from one character to another the same way I can move my unlimited salvage kits and gathering tools and I’ll be the first in line next time they are on sale (I rarely buy anything that isn’t on sale). Otherwise I’m happy with my “cheap” 4 × 15 slot plus 20 backpack, total 80, capacity. I normally don’t let stuff build up for a long period of time when in the field without stopping for a minute at the nearest NPC vendor to flush junk, salvage sub rare items and transfer mats to my mat collection.

It’s cheaper for me to spend gems on collection expanders and bank slots than additional character bag slots. And I’m a pack rat and hoarder.

You’re just wrong Jumpin. Most people don’t WANT to purchase bags period. Even back in the day when it was less than 1.5g per 100 gems. It simply made more sense to buy bigger bags than more spots.

Excuse me for the following shouting.

BLACK LION CHESTS ARE SINCE DAY ONE GEM STORE BOOSTER AND SERVICE SAMPLERS!!! YOU ARE ALL COMPLAINING ABOUT THE STUFF THEY ARE SUPPOSE TO CONTAIN!!! TICKETS AND TICKET SCRAPS ARE ANCILLARY “PRIZES” AND HAVE ALWAYS BEEN!!!

Got that? They are spiced up with items like backpack skins, dye packs, minis, hair and makeover kits and yes tickets and ticket scraps. Tickets and scraps and meant to be a surprise bonus to the usual Gem Shop fare and not the primary reward from them. It doesn’t matter if they are the reason you buy or acquire keys, they simply are not the primary reward. Check out this post of 350 chests.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/3-Tickets-Per-Each-BL-Chest-Weapon-now/5335303

Out of 1050 drops they got 128 scraps and 8 full tickets. And I consider that, well scraps, well above average. That’s roughly 1 out of 8 items dropped which is my point. They aren’t the primary reward that item gives out. Look at the dye kits, the minis, the boosters, the services, the mail carriers. Look at the list.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Black_Lion_Chest

Again apologies.

CHESTS AREN’T JUST FOR TICKETS, YOU ARE PAYING FOR THOSE GEM SHOP ITEMS AND EXCLUSIVES, TICKETS AND THEIR SCRAPS ARE BONUSES!!!

And until you realize and accept the absurdity that you are buying boxes of chocolates not for the chocolates but for a chance to get a chance to win a PS4 and then complain that the boxes contain chocolates, you are beyond hope.

Character collision is normally handled on the client side. When one is detected a separation movement vector is generated and send to the server as if the player generated with the movement keys. So that’s not a problem.

The problem is comes with passages and doorways. City of Heroes had player/npc/critter collision and you could jam up doorways and it was a real problem at times. Pathfinding crowds is one of those game problems that haven’t quite been solved in a generic enough way to be copied and used across game development. It’s a big issue with RTS gaming and while it’s loads better than say the first Warcraft, it would need to transfers agency from players to the server for movement resolution which simply isn’t viable for an RPG/FPS/MMO because we don’t want to give up control of movement.

It causes more problems than it solves. Imagine the outcry if a party wipe happens because a choke point gets, well choked, because players and pets get jammed up allowing mobs of critters to take advantage?

Notsoperky.4291:

Behellagh.1468:

Celestial was a dry run for Ascended time gating of needed mats. When introduced it was to prevent the Daddy Warbucks of the game from having a full celestial set on day one.

And since you can’t buy charged quartz, celestial insignia or any form of celestial armor it’s the type of armor that many players were clamoring for, one that required participation, in this case crafting at level 400, to acquire rather than just buying it.

Honestly you need 30 days to make the 30 charged quartz you need for a full set, is that really too much to effort? After all it’s going to cost you more than 1g per 25 quartz for raw materials. Not everyone is speedrunning dungeons or farming Silverwastes.

30 days per set. 4-5 sets for different rune layouts. Add in a couple alts and it’s stretching past a year for the time gating.

Not everyone plays spam 1 guardian.

It’s not wonder people tend to just grab a cookie cutter build and armor set and never think of changing it at all.

Not my problem that you feel you need multiple armors. What percentage of players do that?

Celestial was a dry run for Ascended time gating of needed mats. When introduced it was to prevent the Daddy Warbucks of the game from having a full celestial set on day one.

And since you can’t buy charged quartz, celestial insignia or any form of celestial armor it’s the type of armor that many players were clamoring for, one that required participation, in this case crafting at level 400, to acquire rather than just buying it.

Honestly you need 30 days to make the 30 charged quartz you need for a full set, is that really too much to effort? After all it’s going to cost you more than 1g per 25 quartz for raw materials. Not everyone is speedrunning dungeons or farming Silverwastes.

Jumpin Lumpix.6108:

So your really arguing that You think its reasonable to pay $15 to upgrade 1 characters bag slots to max for a game that is now 3 years old, and in addition the other method of obtaining these bags has also risen as I have said, to a staggering 180g in game currency as well. No matter how you look at it the game has aged and the price of buying something that is considered essential Utility (even more so now that so many new items have been introduced thus taking up even more space) has risen “Overall” when you take into account all of the methods of obtaining gems.

The game did not become cheaper to run and develop for because it’s three years old. Gem Store items are priced according to real world currency and never by the gold to gem exchange rate. In reality it’s not gems that became devalued, because they cost the same in real world currencies since launch, but gold became devalued relative to gems.

But good news, the lack of anything new or returning to the gem store in the last several weeks have caused the exchange rate to drop from 18 to 16.5 gold per 100.

https://www.gw2tp.com/gems

The devs have enough work to do than cater to the <1% with this issue.

sorudo.9054:

unless they remove all the boosters and “bonus” items (like instant bank access, trading post tokens, etc..) it’s not worth a single penny.

Except that’s exactly what the BL chests are for. Tickets are purely a bonus and until players accept that this topic will keep coming up.

Buy keys if and only if you want a random selection of boosters and services. And if you buy gems with cash, exchange it for gold rather than keys. Right now a $25 gem card (2000 gems) is worth 217 gold if exchanged. There are a lot of weapon skins less than 217 gold and a chance of getting even 1 ticket from 25 keys (2100 gems) is 50/50.

Early for them, like by 2 weeks.

Year over year NCSOFT income is up 1.74%, profit up 9.30%.

Guild Wars 2 sales (not counting China) is up 4.48% year over year.

I guess prepurchasing is helping.

Specifically they call out a large upswing in Korean income due to their core games especially Lineage I, II and Aion. Lineage II and B&S in Japan and B&S in Taiwan are also boosting income from those regions. YoY results.

Korea + 33.36% (+ 36,387 million KrW)
Japan + 1.55% (+ 173 million KrW)
Taiwan + 572.86% (+ 10,176 million KrW)

Taiwan is now bringing in more income than Japan.

I can see why NCSOFT will soon push B&S onto the NA/EU market, even the more sanitized version.

WildStar is still limping along until their F2P mode is released, down 19.98% from last quarter and down 92.60% from their launch quarter. That’s a game that still has a subscription.

Royalties are down 44.17% year over year which they blame on B&S in China with a lack of content updates and in-game promotions. No mention on how GW2 or their other properties are doing there.

Edit: fix unintentional underlining

Black Lion Keys are, IMO, solely something that should be used for fun. Gee, wonder what stuff I’ll get this time? I have most of a 30 slot bank tab full of boosters and other minor gem shop items. Yes, I’ve gotten a few backpacks, dye packs, minis, hair and total makeover kits but it’s mostly boosters and items like repair kits and bankers.

Tickets and scraps? I’ve gotten them too but I don’t buy or acquire keys in the hopes of getting those. If I get enough to buy a skin, sure I’ll buy one and turn around and sell it. But I’m certainly not buying keys expecting to make money on skins. And forget about the permanent contracts. I’ll see a precursor drop in the field before that.

If you are buying keys as a goof, fine (I only do it when they are deeply discounted). If you buy them because you think you’ll hit it big, you’ll probably have better luck with the Mystic Slots or the Ecto Skritt.

Nope, FXAA is still default on Best Appearance.

SMAA is like FXAA and is a post process filter. Yes it’s still slower than FXAA but what it buys is less blurring of textures.

Broom.2561:

General advice for all things Windows: don’t install untill OTHER people have tested it and SP1 is in place. =P

Win 10 has no fixed patch release schedule, they will be issued when done so no more patch Tuesdays, no more service packs, no more choices what gets installed or not installed. So it’s going to be like apps on your phone or tablet, they’ll update when the patch is pushed.

That said most PC sites are suggesting giving Microsoft 4-6 weeks to iron out the “gotcha” install problems that didn’t show up in beta as well as getting updated drivers from all the various OEMs. It’s been reported that 14 million PCs were upgraded on day one.

Thought I read a dev post that shortly they will adjust how they calculate server populations to open up more servers.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/World-Population-Changes-Are-Coming

magestik.4132:

Actually even if they don’t remove the limit, I have 2 Maudrey and both got the same limit, when first is full second is too, so It’s useless to have the second one.

Because the limit is account not character based. Like boss chests.

Most $1000 desktops can’t run WvW with a decent framerate, and an similarly priced laptop always have lower performance. Why do people think laptops are viable PC game platforms? They aren’t unless you are willing to drop some serious bucks on it but in those situations you are just buying an easily carried desktop that’s not as powerful and have horrible battery life.

TL;DR – Laptops are poor gaming PCs.

Intel did release newer Win 10 drivers in the last day or two. See if they will help.

Strife is side step, you still face the same direction while turn changes the direction you are facing.

Another way of thinking it is if you hold the strafe left key down, you go straight left. If you hold the turn left key down you will run around in a circle anti/counter clockwise.

I don’t see anything under gift of fortune in the wiki that says anything about world rank 14, that’s a WvW term.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gift_of_Fortune

Wanze.8410:

Looks like they took the sticky away.

Well, this thread died anyways ever since they closed the old BLTC Forums.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Must save bookmark now since forum search is a mythical beast.

Enko.6123:

Here’s my results from opening 350 black lion chests last night: http://i.imgur.com/YOGTYXi.png

For weapon skins:
8 Black Lion Claim Tickets
128 Scraps

That sounds about right. Maybe a little high compared to the old rules of thumb.

SkullProX.7083:

Oh okay, but nowadays you can unlock all of them, and i still used to see people writing that thats why i asked xD thanks

Well more like now you can only pick 3 lines with everything eventually unlocked rather than 14/70 points to spread across 5 lines. Also during the 2nd version of traits, you could place lower level traits into higher level slots which I didn’t think was possible in the first version.

The previous iteration of traits allowed you access of all 5 trait lines, hence the 5 numbers.

In the first iteration you had 70 points to spend in traits, 1 point per level after level 10. Problem you had to spend 5 points to unlock a trait which allowed you to mess up so in the second iteration they reduced it to 14 points so you couldn’t mess up.

So 0/10/30/30/0 meant no traits in the 1st and last trait line, the 2 adept trait “slots” unlocked on line 1, and all trait “slots”, adept/master/grandmaster, unlocked on lines 3 and 4.

For a i5-4690K system the GTX 750Ti is a tad lightweight.

Also the PSU is seriously oversized for this set up. But if you are planning for the future that’s OK.

Sadly the next step up from the GTX 750Ti is the 960 which is 33% more expensive (roughly $200) but is 60% faster. It’s also has a little more Dx12 support than the 1st gen Maxwell GPU in the 750Ti.

It’s sad BTW about the large gap in performance, that nVidia doesn’t have a card in between the two. But the 750Ti’s selling point is the base model doesn’t need external power so a PSU upgrade isn’t as much of a possibility, not that the 750Ti is a best bang for the buck in terms of performance. You’re paying for the low power requirement which is nullified by the OC, duel fan nature of the 750Ti card you picked.

Since mat nodes are different on every version of the map, it’s not like they can be a static up to the moment map of them. It would be too useful for mat gathering bots.

Well ATI, nVidia and Intel have released tweaked WHQL drivers for Win 10 now. I would wait a couple of weeks so every OEM can catch up and put out Win 10 updates for their hardware.

I uninstalled every system that had any Lavasoft product (AdAware) when Lavasoft was bought by a malware company back in 2011.

The show is set in the future with self-driving cars and androids so …

Also it has a kickstand so Surface Pro 3.0.

Notify them by e-mail and refrain from using whatever you discovered. Case closed.

sirsquishy.8531:

WinAuth is garbage and false positives as malware on AVG, Avira, BitDefender, and Kapersky. I suggest NOT using it until WinAuth gets their CRAP together to fix this.

Instead I suggest downloading either Bluestacks, or Andy, and install the Android platform Authenticator in there instead. This does the same as WinAuth, but it wont be broken by the AV Engines that flag it as an infection.

BS, I put WinAuth on yesterday (3.18) and I have BitDefender. No issue, works fine.

AO can be implemented as a post process pass, same with the dynamic lighting simulating our eyes adjusting to bright/dark.

SkyShroud.2865:

so you are saying gw2 is multithreaded but anet dump most of the things into one single thread thus the load balance isn’t there

that reminds me, gw2 engine was based on modifying gw1 engine which can be really old. not surprising if it does not take advantage of multi core architecture.

wow, so gw2 is super badly optimized eh…

No the game has two primary threads, one renders, the other does nearly everything else. There are additional threads that are more helper threads for the other two but it’s not a scaling renderer.

Devs admitted they still had the options marked as dev only, it’ll be fixed soon. You waited this long, better than editing a file and screwing something up.

Not talking about the 6 digit code but the 16 character key.

And there is an easier way with WinAuth I just found. If it does show Guild Wars 2 then if you right click on the Guild Wars 2 label you get an option to display the key; “Show Secret Key …”.

Beldin.5498:

RoseofGilead.8907:

Ambient Occlusion is right at the top of the check box list.

Hmm .. i only see this :
I also tried fullscreen mode, didn’t changed anything.

Look at that screen shot closely. Look for check boxes.

starlinvf.1358:

Paulytnz.7619:

I downloaded and used the WinAuth myself yesterday and had no issues.

Have you got a mobile phone (doesn’t have to be a smart phone) at all ? The reason I ask is that it’s a better option to just choose them to send you a text message, slightly safer and easier to set up. After reading the blog info today myself, I quickly changed to the text option. I would advise the same for anyone else, especially those having issues with WinAuth.

Worth noting, if you are one of those that don’t have the unlimited text message, go review your cell phone plan to see if the charge for both incoming as well as outgoing SMS.

10 cents a message, in or out. Since I don’t text I only get messages and at one point a dozen SMS spams one month. I also know that pay as you go plans like TracFone also “charge” for SMS messages at the cost of 10 equals one minute of paid time. May no sound like a lot but still not “free”. It’s the presumption that “everybody” gets free SMS so they all think SMS 2-party authorization is a harmless way of doing this.

Sylent.3165:

Same thing happened to me. Yes anet should of announced this before hand. Happened to me last night. I had a claim ticket, could of got free. I lost 800g. Luckily not as much as you but it’s still crazy. 24 hour notice souls of been given

Which would have helped you but not the player who bought 24 hours before that. That’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Nope, Bitdefender likes it.

Forum bug, she’s on it.

That’s what the blog post seems to imply.

We strongly recommend that you use one of these two systems to protect your account. But for you, our long-term Guild Wars 2 players, we won’t force the issue. You’ve had your account for a while and it hasn’t been stolen. Your existing account security has stood the test of time.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-new-way-to-protect-your-account/

The limitation seems to be new accounts without either either SMS or Authenticator can’t trade gold and items to other accounts.

The dragon is encouragement to do so.

I assume this is partially in response to players returning due to HoT finding their accounts compromised, emptied, used as a RMT account and/or banned. If this makes it harder for accounts to be swiped and used for RMT, which reduces the load on 1st line CS they win, we win, RMT loses.

Then you didn’t follow the export steps because if you did you would have gotten a .txt file.

SkyShroud.2865:

i hope you understand that dx12 is not just simply of increase of drawcalls.

while the increase of drawcalls indicate that the cpu can be freed of doing these tasks to focus on other tasks which also indicate performance increase due to that.

dx12 also help resolve problems with the cpu scaling

while anet dev is saying about dx9 regarding to rendering thread.
he has comment nothing about dx12 which work differently from all previous dx.

Only if code calling the Dx API are already multithreaded. Basically the Dx12 driver allows more of the driver code to be executed in the “User Mode” (UM) rather than “Kernel Mode” (KM) which only runs in a single thread at the OS level. That UM code is thread safe so if the calls to the API are broken out across multiple threads, so then is a greater portion of the driver code. It’s not automatic, the existing renderer needs to be multithreaded as well. Ours is not.

So if your renderer is already scalable, Dx12 makes a even greater impact than a scalable Dx11 code path. But GW2’s renderer is not scalable yet. Everyone is putting the cart before the horse here. Both of the main threads first needs to be coded to allow greater CPU scalablility and then Dx11/12 can shine. The trick is first getting the existing code and data, as described in the reddit post, thread safe so scalability is possible.

And while modern game engines are already designed that way so adding Dx12 is a relatively easy task, ours is not. Duplicating the existing render code and replace the Dx9 calls with Dx12 is not going to significantly help the game’s performance. It’s the equivalent to putting racing slicks and a spoiler on an AMC Pacer and thinking it’s going to get faster.

Edit: Thanks maddoctor for linking to the illustration.

Empty file, no GuildWars line or nothing between “secret=” and “&digits=6”?

Speculating is a harsh mistress. I think her name is Loviatar.

I’ve been browsing the price drops. Hammer went from 1300g to 350g, what savings!

I’m running the latest WinAuth, 3.18. You can get it to dump the keys with the export selection in the settings drop down of WinAuth, the gear.

If you don’t want the exported file to be either a password encrypted zip file or a PGP encrypted text file don’t check either option and simply click on browse to chose the folder where an plain unencrypted text file is dumped.

Open that file and look for the line containing the word “GuildWars” and your 16 character key is after “secret=” and before the “&digits=6”.

otpauth://totp/GuildWars?secret=<ThisistheSecretKey>&digits=6

Why so stuck? If you don’t want it in a password protected zip file or a PGP encrypted file, because you simply want to find out the 16 character secret code, leave those two options unchecked and enter a file name or click on browse, choose a folder. Then click OK.

Open the file and look for guildwars. This is mine with the secret code clipped out and replaced with <secret code>.

otpauth://totp/GuildWars?secret=<secret code>&digits=6

It’s not rocket surgery.

SkyShroud.2865:

you don’t really understand what DX 12 signify or should i say, bother to understand it.

a lot of graphical things depend on this thing called drawcalls. to put it on simple terms, the things that you see on your screen are made up of tons of drawcalls

dx9 support up to 6k, dx11 support up to 10k iirc and finally dx12 support up to 600k drawcalls request.

so what happen when you exceed the drawcall limit? your cpu has to work harder to handle the extra drawcalls which naturally lead to cpu bottleneck.

so why is gw2 cpu intensive? gw2 has made a lot of drawcall requests and not only that, gw2 is a MMO which means the more characters on your screen, the more drawcall requests it will make.

if gw2 is to implement dx12, all players who use dx12 machines will see a significant improvement over fps in large scale event as the cpu and gpu will be utilised more efficiently. that is to say, even with a bad cpu, as long your gpu is dx12 compatible, you will see a significant boost in performance.

having better performance also mean your gameplay will improve, isnt it?

dx12 is the start of new era of gaming since the old era has been limited by drawcalls. the korea mmo try to enter the new era by pushing for action-based mmo but still, it is limited by the drawcall from reaching its greatest potential. the new high end hardwares is what pushing the game then. now, dx12 is here, the huge amount of possibility open due to it pushes the games to an new era.

Oh I understand it. I was commenting on your assertion that players would choose another game rather than GW2 solely on the fact it didn’t support Dx12. AO and automated gamma adjustment based on current lighting conditions as well as new AA modes show that work on the pipeline isn’t dead.

maddoctor pretty much hit the other point, that the game’s limited performance currently is due to the primary non-render thread, as reported by the dev in charge of the code, not being fast enough to do all the housekeeping required for the next frame to be rendered. Dx12 would help the render block of code for sure but not this.

Kokey.6329:

duh obviously i know that zzz… highly irrelevant ppff wonder im the one posting here …. obviously cause he cant post in the forums……. im asking for a way to retrieve the secret code in WinAuth not steps on how to submit a ticket….

Which I told you how.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/authenticator-zzzz/5329424

anx.7549:

I think it is definitely an odd shape. It looks like a snake with weird legs.

Paint it red and give it the voice of Eddie Murphy and maybe you will recognize it.