Guild Wars 2

There’s quartz crystals in Dry Top.

It’s just a symptom of a larger problem.

Population isn’t the only difference between T1 and lower-tier servers either… the NA timezone guild groups are also a lot better on the lower tiers. Pugs are much the same everywhere.

If you’re going to attempt to fight outnumbered you probably should go for uplevels and squishies first, just to minimise the amount of damage you can take as quickly as possible.

Records from Shining Blade operatives should indicate the presence of a lagoon there 250 years ago. Whether the Priory has a map of it I couldn’t say.

If DPS continues to be the only thing that matters, a meter of some sort would be useful for testing builds. However, if ANet still plan to design future content in ways that make DPS secondary to player skill, it’s giving hand grenades to monkeys.

Dry Quarry is about all the remnant we’ve got.

The Priory would have some reason to investigate its mysterious disappearance, though. A scholar in the Far Silverwastes sent to examine the place would likely be looking for something that disturbed the water table there. Given the caverns underneath are a likely place for water to drain to, the actual cause of Mamnoon’s drying might be considerably deeper.

It’s been said a few times already, but the break comes at a welcome time. Like a number of other people, I’ll be away for most of the Christmas break. Some players may not be able to log in to register the new chapters if they kept on coming.

PeterFries.1057:

Thanks for your feedback, everyone.

In development, I’d given the various forts much more nondescript names like Derelict Enclave and Desolate Bastion, but feedback from testing the content wisely suggested renaming the forts so that players could organize themselves by something more distinctive, like colors. By then, it helped that the environment art was far enough along to actually tell what these forts were going to look like and we could collaborate to make the chosen colors make some sense, like “Blue Oasis.”

We went with cardinal directions on the map because we were going to be sending people through a network of skritt tunnels and seeing the option to go to the Eastern Silverwastes seemed easier to understand than seeing something like “Take skritt tunnel to Goosepinch Gulch.”

Here’s a real ‘inside baseball’ story: when it came time to add a sector for the new sector where you plant the third memory seed, I was stumped on how to name that place so that it was easy to describe where to go in dialogue. We already had a “Northern Silverwastes”—was I going to have to send players north of north? Luckily someone reminded me that we have the “Far Shiverpeaks,” and then I had my place name.

That’s where you could have called it Mamnoon Bowl or similar, in my opinion. There’s no organisational reason why players go there, so the direction is not important – except that the Far Silverwastes implies to me that it’s a long way from something in particular. Far Shiverpeaks were as far north as you could go before freezing to death, so it made sense. I didn’t see a clear link for the Silverwastes though.

Vanive.3804:

How about you go chase your kills across the lava in Mount Maelstrom during Mega Destroyer and see how long you last with your medium armor. Or how about when you are meleeing a mob solo and it’s pushed away so far you have to go chase it down and by the time you leap to it, it’s dead and even thought you spent the majority of the time knocking down it’s health, you get no credit or loot for the kill. That sounds like fun right?

That sounds like you were attacking a mob that doesn’t award credit.

You have Shadow Step, I don’t know why you’re complaining about the lava.

Offair.2563:

DeWolfe.2174:

Bryzy.2719:

snip

I only whisper someone if they start in spamming emotes. Otherwise, I’m too busy WP’ing back into battle.

One of the first things i do when joining a pvp based game:

Disable emotes.

Phew saves a lot of unessecary bullkitten filling my chat channel.

I prefer to leave emotes active because some people still use them to ‘hide’ in keeps.

Not sure actually – but I don’t think I’d be playing anymore.

Just let it slide… it’s a handy skill in some situations when used by a competent ranger, and when used by an incompetent one it usually doesn’t do anything more than slow the fight down a little. In the rare situations where it is causing a serious problem I just back off and let the ranger die, then go back in and finish the job properly.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Paciunek.2496:

I’m not a new player but his guides is what keeps me in this game. I would never complete most of the achievements without Dulfy, and achievements are my reason to play.
Thanks for the awesome job and thanks to all people helping you.

Exactly. Without Dulfy’s guides, there would be a lot more frustrated players. And maybe a lot less players period.

I don’t think any guide is going to save players from frustration on these. They were useful to find the last 3 that I missed, but all the kittenes are hidden in plain sight. The two hardest are so close to ground level that the path you have to take to reach them seems completely ludicrous… because Josh Foreman is an evil, evil man. (And brilliant.)

[Edit: Hard badges has nothing to do with cracking a fat but the filter did, by pure luck, find an appropriate place to put that.]

That one was horrendous but it’s not the only really tricky one. Found 25 so far, one of which I can’t reach because the cable providing access is actually too steep to climb. Some of them can’t be done with Portal either – too far from a waypoint and ground too far below.

There were two things I was looking for in GW2, post-GW1:

Firstly, an open-world conquest scenario (WvW) where guilds could take and hold territory, for their own glory and resources from managing it. WvW has largely failed to deliver on that one, because you can’t hold anything for longer than a week, and even that is a punishing chore that grants you nothing in return. It’s still my favourite form of PvP in GW2, for similar reasons to Jiaju Tai’s description of Lion’s Arch: in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

The second thing was a story-based PvE mode that makes the overworld interesting, carrying on and improving from GW1. This has fared somewhat better, particularly in the recent additions via LS2, but is still sorely let down by the lack of side-quests. ArenaNet should not treat those as a dirty word – they’re great ways to explore more about the world, and the player’s character. They don’t have to be particularly complex or voiced. What they’re there for is to offer additional story to those people who would like to see more than just the main storyline quest.

Presumably, pay to win?

Paying to lose stylishly is a different thing entirely.

I find the current target nearest functionality quite useful actually, but I wouldn’t mind an extra keybind for target nearest in view.

Don’t know the names but I have seen the guild before. They’re rubbish

If the goal is to attract additional PvE players into WvW, is providing an event for the winning server really a good idea?

Problem is, the changes are still band-aids that aren’t nearly enough to fix a game mode that’s grown stale across the board and needs a total overhaul to recover. Following the last tournament, WvW populations have collapsed to an extent I’ve never seen before. Kaineng’s population at launch would be able to hold a spot in T3 if not T2 today.

Ugh.

I suppose pandas would be worse. But with Cantha, I think ANet has enough faux-Asian headaches to work with already. Some aspects of this one would be unpublishable in China.

Yoroiookami.3485:

As for the benefits – they would be nice, but I only actually care about sharing the account bound items.

Unfortunately, that’s the one issue that’s unworkable because it opens up more possibilities for scams and account hacking. Once you gain access to someone’s ascended crafting materials it’s not particularly hard to launder them. This also means account-bound materials could be sold through such a system, but without the security of the BLTC – and that will lead to a proliferation of scamming. It simply is not worth ANet’s support time to deal with the problems that implementing this will create.

Race: Charr
Sex/class: All

Footprints are backwards. Have been since launch.

Sounds like a great excuse to ‘marry’ whoever I’m in party with.

Luvpie.8350:

What about requiring LOS? Siege disablers through gate is a problem..

Could be mistaken but I think rams can hit from beyond 300 range.

At any rate if disablers are a problem you can always build catas and spread them out. The LOS issue isn’t going to be fixed in a hurry because it’s not actually LOS causing the problem, it’s the AoE field extending through the gate. And even if they do fix it there’s very little risk involved with throwing a disabler from the wall out of stealth.

Dante.8456:

I have to be honest, I am against a solo mode.
I think the whole point of dungeons is to provide content that requires group co-ordination and presents a challenge.
Solo modes would just divide the player-base.

The people who would use the solo mode currently aren’t doing dungeons at all, so I’m not seeing how it’d divide anything – unless the rewards for soloing were too high.

Wee bit condescending but if you can look beyond that it provides a reasonable, if incomplete, summary.

Straegen.2938:

You may not like FA’s NA Prime if you thought DB was tough going. Those guys not only come out in force but they are full of very skilled GvG, havoc and roamers. Most of their pugs are hardened from months of skill group play. Good fights, but some of their gank squads they have can drive opposing players batty.

Thankfully it’s the 9th and 8th placed servers now making it abundantly clear that there is a colossal population gap between them and 7th.

Mia Crazymike.1780:

Someone who doesn’t participate in the match, but is not AFK can be voted off by majority alike map voting. It would always take 9 or 8 people (out of the 10 players in total, in the match) to vote “Yes”, so that one person who is not participating can finally get kicked.

Probably better to restrict the vote to their own party. The other party gains an advantage by keeping them there.

epborden.7492:

They are not reasons or justifications to mass report. They are a symbol of people creating their own solutions where there are none.

That is not a “solution”. Reporting everyone in the guild doesn’t change the fact that the only people who can issue bans here are ArenaNet staff.

It just means they have even more bans to hand out – on the people doing the false reporting.

There actually isn’t that much time you can spend on the single-player instances compared to the open-world content. Not seeing a problem myself. Except perhaps a shortage of group content.

No Walking.6349:

Anet, go back to the format you used for Season 1 ASAP. Not only was the content better, but it was much MUCH more memorable. I used to look forward to logging on every 2 weeks and getting ALL the achievements because each update was so starkly different. Now… I can hardly be bothered to step into PvE at all.

… I couldn’t disagree more. Aside from the Marionette, LA and a few things about the Tower of Nightmares I just don’t remember that much of S1, and looking at my achievement log it seems I skipped content entirely on several occasions. Towards the end they started to get it right, and it’s no coincidence that I find S2 compelling for similar reasons. Storyline is more interesting by comparison (if a little more like an interactive TV series than a game – would still like sidequests) and releases seem better paced.

I think Arenanet has hit the nail on the head with the mixture of temporary and permanent content – open-world is best for permanent and little-changing events, instances are best for time-based story and allow players to revisit content later. Perhaps if S1 had been done the same way it would have been a little more appealing. But bringing back some of the larger events as raid content might be a better way to address the problem at this stage.

I do tend to focus on the story perspective though, as opposed to instanced group content where S2 has been rather light. It probably is about time we saw some dungeons.

Perhaps “mount” should be added to the profanity filter.

Already got a few things that act as mounts. Doing jumping puzzles with a magic carpet is quite a ride, I must say.

5-10 player groups just have to use catapults or trebuchets from a distance. They can still be hit by siege disablers but it’s easier to counter.

With so few people actually using TS these days there’s nothing to be spied on. But there’s a verification procedure where community reps are supposed to ensure the person verified is on the server. Hardly watertight but there’s little to be gained by spying, so it doesn’t need to be.

Jumping puzzles are the only one that comes to mind at the moment. Not a factor in my picking the game up at all, but they’ve added a lot to the enjoyment of it.

Try running GW2 with the -maploadinfo flag. Won’t solve the problem but it’ll make it easier to find the problem.

Wanze.8410:

Superior Sigil of Critter Slaying
+50% Damage against critters

I need this.

For a bunny infestation that must be addressed.

Probably the platform in front of and below the pillar you’re supposed to aim for. I wouldn’t bother with it; that doesn’t work either, it still shoots you right over the top pillar.

The most reliable way I’ve found is going backwards onto the cliff above, but that only has a 10% success rate too. However it means you don’t have to jump all the way around to try again.

Generally, I just avoid using that waypoint, but on entering the zone for the first time you don’t have a choice.

Superior Sigil of Touching
All Ranger attacks using this weapon ignore armor and have 0 range.

ANet should probably look into ways to scale events, their timers and rewards to be more suitable with low population. DT and SW won’t have many people on them forever, particularly as more metaevent-based maps are released.

There’s no explicit permission to take these steps but it’s fairly clearly in the spirit of the terms of use, and easily defensible in any case. I can’t speak for everywhere, obviously, but there’s no chance of being prosecuted for that here.

Palador.2170:

Gaile Gray.6029:

The Content Terms of Use may help you.

If you have something to say, you should flat-out say it. Linking to a lengthy legal document and assuming that everyone knows what part you’re talking about AND can fully and correctly understand it is … well, it’s not good communication, for starters.

Don’t assume Gaile has a full knowledge of everything you can and can’t do with GW2 IP. That link is there in case something on that page answers the question.

Other things that weren’t added in 2014 include new gear tiers, mounts, open-world PKing, DPS meters, server merges… and those are just a handful of the dubious things some players did ask for.

That is a long and very cherry-picked list of things, 80% of which have never bothered me personally – so I have to wonder how many other players aren’t interested in “lore to legendaries” etc. either. Other items are being addressed now or in the near future, and plenty are just plain wrong.

If I’m going to compare 2014 to 2013, it’s added a whole lot more story and a bit of interesting content (I do wish there was more, but it’s improving) instead of the temporary stuff we saw in 2013 and the rather-too-permanent ascended grind.

What’s missing is a needed update/overhaul of PvP/WvW. Fingers crossed that’s on the way.

Bell Choir is the only place where this could be a problem, as that does actually constitute a gameplay advantage. That aside, I’m not buying this ‘slippery slope’ fallacy. It’s pretty evident that instrument macros aren’t going to provide a gameplay advantage in most situations.

Also, there’s a difference between “officially allowing” macros and choosing not to action their use in certain situations. It’s a parallel with decriminalization vs. legalization.

Perhaps creativity could start by not dying everything black.

No, it just becomes account bound.

You can put them in the Mystic Forge and salvage / sell the result.

I have a fair idea already – I’ve worked with game models before. Cleaning up a mesh is a lot easier than reconstructing a complex object by hand, I can say from experience.

Mystic.5934:

There exists software that you can give it a series of pictures of an object and it turns them into a 3D model, which you could then print. I see no reason you couldn’t use screenshots for this well… your character swishing or moving in any way might make be a good reason it wouldn’t work.
I have no idea what this software is named, and I have never used or have direct knowledge about it myself, I’ve just heard it exists… and I’m sure it’s expensive.

Such software exists… though the one I know of is still in R&D phase because it requires a battery of CPUs to do the triangulation. It would be interesting to see if it could work on game screenshots but it would be way easier to use a ripped model because you need to stop it moving while you’re taking pictures… I suppose you could use a petrify from a Box of Fun but it’ll mean post-work to fix the texture.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

A technical note though: A lot of the in-game models feature 2d planes, which are not suitable for printing. Generally speaking, a 3d printer needs a complete 3d mesh to work with. GW2 characters are made up of several loose parts: Head, torso, legs, feet, arms, and accessories. Even if you rip the models from the game, you still need to do a lot of welding, and modelling to make them into printable objects. Plus, any loose garments are just flat 2D surfaces with a double sided texture. You need something 3D in order to print it. So you’d probably have to extrude those 2D surfaces yourself, this is where the modeling comes in. There are also a lot of sub-sections of models that cut into one another. Obviously, if you want to print it, you can’t have this in your model. You can’t have intersecting meshes. Worse yet, if your character has transparent textures, this becomes a real problem. A transparent texture gives the illusion of depth, but to a 3D printer it is simply a solid plane. You’d probably have to manually model holes in the mesh, to make it 3D.

So all in all, it is still a lot of work. It’s not as simple as just ripping and printing. Sorry to shatter anyone’s dreams.

And you have to paint it as well. I’m tempted to have a bash at it now… though I’d need a way to extract the model, and that’s the bit I don’t know how to do. I’ll also want to do some refinement on the mesh, because charr are pretty blocky by default and the result from a 3D printer is not going to be pretty without some work, particularly on the face, mane, hands and tail.

Will also need to find a 3D printer.

Would be nice if this gets fixed but it is still possible, even if it takes longer. Unfortunately even the ranged phantasms don’t tend to sit outside the circle nicely… and wouldn’t do any damage even if they did.