Guild Wars 2

This would be a nice consideration.

I’m guessing they are attempting to prevent the potential for the mischievous few updating several guild halls quickly in small groups (which would be ridiculous).

I think guild upgrades should scale with population, just as I think player rewards should scale with effort actually expended.

Mac: character textures replace with white, magenta, green, yellow and cyan colors on character selection screen and in HoT maps. Eventual “heap” error follows, resulting in crash.

Odyssey.6523:

4.) You can take over or lead recruitment efforts, or mentor new players and help get them to 80, learn PvP or an unpopular game mode within your guild to broaden the number of places your guild can draw resources, etc…. Not having HoT is not the end of the world though.

This is always very helpful. Every player you help along the way is an opportunity to improve the game environment for all of us. Take advantage of that.

Besides donating materials and coin from core Tyria play, the best thing you can do for any guild as a non-HoT player is represent while partied with other members during general play and actively participate in guild missions. The influence and favor gained when you play with guild members supports your guild’s upgrading efforts while also improving the play experience for you fellow guild-mates.

Have fun out there; and, be helpful to each other.

Valid points Kylissa.

Although large guilds may already have a bank node in their guild hall, smaller guilds do not. The fact that the treasurer and other guild hall NPCs are completely oblivious to player banks forces players to travel in and out of guild instances to access the bank. At best, this is tedious, at worst it’s an time waster that kills time folks could spend having fun.

The fact that players have no interface in the guild window that tells them what the guild needs from anywhere in the game means that players may have to: 1. visit a guild NPC (notary), 2. write down or memorize guild needs, 3. visit a bank/crafting site to get the requisite materials, 4. return to the guild NPC to donate appropriately. That’s at least 2 steps too many. Making a PvP build isn’t this hard or complicated; so, it’s very possible, with better design, to make guild upgrades more intuitive.

Recently, my client has begun to crash while in Verdant Brink with “heap” errors. This is a memory management issue. Generally, before the crash, textures will be replaced by white/green/magenta/cyan colors. I noticed the texture changes first, as they didn’t always preclude a crash and they often occurred only on the character selection screen after i’d played a character that had been in HoT. Unfortunately, this behavior, which fixed itself once I had played a character in core Tyria, has evolved somehow into crashes that can occur at any time. The crashes happen more frequently when I play near or in events that have a large player population involved.

Omne.4603:

This would be an amazing addition. More communication would help streamline things for guilds.

Hey there Omne. I’m pleasantly surprised that we agree on something here (after your previous, somewhat flippant, comment on my leadership ability).

Do you have any suggestions that might improve the guild upgrade system and its donation requirements or do you feel the system is fine as it is?

Booey Bubblehead.4890:

Rather than the guild treasurer asking for all materials for all potential upgrades, we should be able to some how queue the upgrade we are working toward so that guildies know what is needed for the next goal instead of giving items to the treasurer that we may never use and that they can’t get back.

Having a built in interface in the guild window that displays guild goals and quantities of donations supplied/need is just good interface design (that ArenaNet has predictably failed to provide). This would make the system much more intuitive and useful. I’m sure the excuse we’d get as to why this isn’t going to be added would be something like, “it’s too difficult to make changes to the guild window now and using an NPC is more flexible for future developments;” but, it’s unfortunate that the design wasn’t implemented more holistically and thoughtfully.

Good points in general there Booey.

SkyShroud.2865:

you will know among all your members, who are the one who cares and the one who don’t.

This is a valid point. Still, knowing who really cares about the vitality of the guild and being able to provide services for guild members are 2 different things. I’ve known for some time who my core members are and that I can depend on them. I don’t feel good about them constantly making donations to the treasury when all they had to do before HoT was play together and have some fun.

Fun really is supposed to be the whole point, right?

Shoe.5821:

i dont really see the problem since people can have five guilds

you only ‘need’ to belong to 1 guild that has built up hall

i dont think the new materials system is a great idea, but its not the worst thing ever either. instead of nagging people just put a message in your MOTD.

Personally, I consider having to post for donations in my MOTD nagging members, as it wasn’t necessary before and it reduces the space for announcements for guild missions and FUN stuff (which is more important to players in a game).

Dengar.1785:

Can you at the very least explain why you want your fully unlocked guild hall yesterday?

Because I don’t get all these newfangled entitled instant gratification lines of thinking.

At no point did I say I wanted everything quickly. I simply don’t want to have to pester my members to get things going.

As a guild leader, I take it as my job to efficiently provide services for my members.

I lost that ability when HoT launched. Due to the upgrade system I won’t be able to get it back for at least a month. In the mean time, my members are left worse off than they were a month ago.

Tragically short-sighted that.

The simplest way to play the game if you need direction is to follow the personal story. You’ll need to go visit maps near your level to complete heart events and adventures to get past the level gating; but, once you meet the required levels, the story guides you quite efficiently.

If you like to explore and find new things, stick to player versus environment play in the open world and take your time leveling. Since the game adjusts your level automatically when playing on lower level maps, don’t worry about where you are as much as how well you are learning your character’s profession.

If you want more immediate gratification and directed action, get into the capture points (not deathmatch) play available in player versus player or world versus world play.

Although many players are stuck in the mindset of “rush to maximum level to play end-game content” that really isn’t necessary in Guild Wars 2 and it can burn you out quicker than necessary.

I’ve posted a video for new players on my guild’s YouTube channel. As a returning player it may not be what you’re looking for; but, it might give you some ideas.

Good luck to ya.

The Brown Fang Ardour Legion welcomes new players of all stripes to the Guild Wars 2 experience with a new video on YouTube, available now.

For all new and returning players, we hope you find Guild Wars 2 to be as fun and exciting as we have.

As you explore the game, you’ll find plenty of good people willing to help you find your own fun. There is a lot to learn and explore in Guild Wars 2 after all.

I noted another forum user mentioned using the existing LFG tool to assemble squads in the game to avoid commanders standing around waiting for the squad membership they want. I’d hope that this would have been an obligatory consideration by developers, with the test implementation just being placeholder.

spoj.9672:

I think the entire point is that its not supposed to be immediately intuitive. Like it actually took some work to discover how to deal with that attack exactly because of this. I dont think its a bad thing to be honest.

If the mechanic was a form of gateway, like a level gate, that prevented success until it were deciphered then ceased to be repeated I’d agree with this point of view.

Unfortunately, it takes less than a single play through to figure out the intent of the mechanic and this mechanic has no replay value added by being difficult to read. The first time a player misreads the mechanic after having deciphered its requirements may be refreshing. Around the 10th or 15th time it becomes a frustrating distraction that discourages play.

Obfuscation is always your worst form of security.

Great games don’t baffle players with ways to interpret their interfaces, they challenge players to use their simple interfaces to overcome well calculated risks.

I did get a bit of a giggle when, while laying dead outside the Vale arena, I could see the thin orange line of the oncoming AOE attack contacting from a large distance outside of the arena. The irony of this UI aid being indiscernible to players in the arena and thus completely useless as an interface was quite amusing to me.

As I hadn’t considered the implications for color blind players until I read through several posts about the Commander Tag UI, I’d suggest possibly changing the shape of the interface as well as the color.

Using an octagon might send a mixed message, as it is used so often for stop; but, replacing the circle with a hexagon or decagon would make it easily distinguishable as a unique element. I’d be prone to use the decagon as a nod to the 10 player limit of raids and it’s similarity, visually, when small, to the circle. I’d probably also alternate the fill on the triangular sections of the polygon to further make it visually distinct.

Overlaying this design with some sort of filigree or tracery might make it too confusing, with such treatments being used for wells and marks. Therefore, I’d probably stick to the regular polygon with some additional identifying marks.

Of course, using a shape with some form of patterning could also help, such as concentric rings, checkerboard or crosshatch, especially if changing the shape from a circle was ruled out.

Crystal Reid.2481:

FX artist has been looking into this.

Excellent.

I hope the suggestions in this thread pan out to some really great, intuitive and informative user interface designs that work consistently throughout the game.

Skrytt.9478:

4. Naming of subsquads would be useful for organisation.

I’d like this if it were included.

I’d love it if my selected squad naming conventions were saved form my account so that I wouldn’t have to rename squads every time I tagged up.

Of course, being able to save personal preference information for all parts of the game would go a long way to saving precious play time, as a general rule.

Also, having a separate squad chat box was great; but, not being able to move it from appearing over squad icons was annoying. Giving players control of the placement of their windows (as was the case in GW1) would solve this issue, obviously.

When breaking my squad up into smaller sets I found the drag and drop system a bit wonky. For example, after I’d drug 3 players into set B, moving them into sets C and A to match what I intended resulted in squads numbered 1 & 3, with no squad 2 in sight (as it had no members and had automatically been deleted). Besides the poor sorting algorithm work there, the real problem was that dragging a player down to create a new set had an unreliable snap that resulted in some players not moving or moving too far.

What I’d prefer is a selection interface with multi-select capability. It would be much easier to Cmd-click the players I want in a specific set to select them, then click an “add squad” button or “+” to create the set. This would also be quicker and more accurate than a drag and drop interface that has to account for latency and pixel distances within a dynamically scalable window. Such an interface would also be more intuitive because it mimics the selection of desktop icons in a way that has been standardized for decades now.

Did anyone else find breaking a squad up to be more challenging than intuitive?

I found the mechanic of having to stand inside one AOE field in order to avoid another counter-intuitive and unwieldy to communicate. I’d really have like it if the devs could have created an interface here that would be more intuitive and fitting with the rest of the game.

The standard of dodging out of red/orange enemy AOE fields has been in place for quite some time and it works. Introducing an orange AOE field as a “safe” spot is a cheap trick at best and simply poor design at worst. Changing the color of the interface could make it easier for players to understand and communicate to each other, without changing the mechanics of the effect.

I’d have made the smaller AOE circle green because street lights and player/npc names in the game tell us that green means “go” (safe) while red means “stop” (not safe). There’s no need to obfuscate the mechanic with fuzzy messaging in the interface (orange AOE circle that looks like the typical red AOE circle) if the mechanic is designed well. The fact that this element appears at unpredictable locations means there is a chance players will miss it (especially if they are covered in particle effects). Therefore, timing and location of the element are key to the mechanics, while color is not.

Are other players out there thinking the orange AOE spots were unduly misleading?

I found it quite interesting while recruiting my squad that other commanders were adamantly requesting specific professions in specific quantities for this content.

Although the idea of never having to wait around for a monk in GW2 sounds great, it appears that the focus on pleasing trinity players with the raid content they miss from the games they aren’t playing anymore has created an excellent space for people to wait around for “a monk of a different color” while attempting to play raids. This waiting still isn’t much fun.

As I’m an egalitarian kind of guy, I specifically noted in my party recruitment that all players were welcome, regardless of profession or experience. My listing was unique in that for a time, then others followed suit.

Since one of the mechanics required in what we played was boon removal, squad composition relied heavily on at least one player meeting this requirement. I’m curious as to how others feel this kind of mechanic will effect raid squad composition going forward.

My experience with PUGing the raid was that it worked well, with little issue right up until the Vale Guardian. It took more communication and coordination to get the Vale to even begin to work for us. Still, with only 1 squad member using boon removal, the experience was more time consuming than challenging.

Did others find their maps full of commanders requesting specific builds to assault the Vale Guardian?

FlamingFoxx.1305:

“you can try to delete the contents of the gw2 data folder…

That’s probably your best bet.

Huge thanks to ya FlamingFoxx. Your suggestion worked like a charm.

Also, thank you to the original post.

I just had a ridiculous client crash on my Mac and this seems to be the only thing that brought the client back. I had tried re-installing the game and following the worthless suggestion given at https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/28148006-Repairing-the-Game-Client (which resulted in a huge list of unrepairable errors in the terminal by the way).

I decided to check the forums as a fluke, expecting to get nowhere; but, am very pleasantly surprised.

I really think this should be made a sticky post for Mac client users. If not that, then at least the support page I gave the link to above should offer this as an alternative solution.

Eventually, I would really appreciate it if the sender of mail in the game was represented at all times by the account name, rather than a character name. I feel this change is necessary because, as a guild leader who gets mail from potential members, it is impossible to determine what account is sending me mail from the character name in the mail address. An interface change that allowed the account name to be seen on hover in the mail window, as it does in chat, would work well. Not having this information on hand makes finding an account in a long friends list hard.

In the mean time, perhaps there is something I’m missing. Does anyone else have a work around that would allow me to make a guild invite more directly from a character name in a mail message?

Recently my client has begun throwing a lot of exception errors, malloc errors and other random, game-crashing errors, (dtsBits error today was new) especially in areas where there are a lot of activities like the Silverwastes. I’m going to go out on a limb and blaming your experiment.

I use the Mac client. It’s been rather stable during the past year. Still, since about BWE2 it’s been crashing every time there are massive numbers of models on screen. I attribute this a lot to the memory leaks that peak when there are a lot of models on the screen. The model errors were present earlier; but, infrequent. Over the past week, I’ve lost event credit and Vinewrathe chests due to disconnects from client crashes.

Some of my guild members have also mentioned frequent disconnects, though they are using PC. The erratic pings that cropped in around early summer are persistent now.

On the plus side, while running with a laggy player today, I did notice that rubber banding was reduced. I think that guildie was happy with being able to keep up (though not thrilled about the lag).

You’ve said that you don’t want to use “the trinity” because waiting around for a healer isn’t fun; but, you consistently create timer based content that requires players to wait around until your timers say they can play. Your timers become the monks everyone is waiting for.

The obvious cure is true procedural content activation that responds to player activity.

Without knowing ArenaNet’s full intentions with this content it is hard to fully evaluate the event’s success. Still, it is easy to see that many players are unhappy.

As I have stated in another thread about this event, I can not, as a guild leader, recommend this event to my guild members as a fun or rewarding addition to the game. The fact that the reward system is a mess is beside the point really, mainly because there are much greater design issues that need to be addressed. Most of my guild members enjoy player versus environment content; yet, they draw their enjoyment chiefly from the sense of accomplishment completing PvE can provide that is absent from the Modrem event experience.

To improve this type of content I would suggest:

1. Adopt and adapt the Silverwastes reward structure that combines looting with HUD reward chests. Evolving the system to evaluate player involvement based on kills, events participated in and time spent per event as percentiles of a developer defined quota for completion would be a boon for individuals and groups alike. The quota could be adjusted at will without effecting content to better serve player population and activity.

2. Require a “shell success” rate for each time period during which you want the event to be played in while keeping play periods down to 5-15 minutes per period. The 15 minute play period works well in WvW and PvP: follow those examples that players enjoy without major complaints. An example of a shell success rate here would be: over the 3 maps involved in this event 80% of all events must be completed for copper reward, 88% for silver, 93% for gold. This shell rule would apply separately from the individual map reward requirements, as an aggregate. It should be calculated for players based on the actual play they have invested, rather than requiring persistent grinding. Thus, a player should be able to do map 1 today, map 3 tomorrow and map 2 later to reap the reward for completing a single circuit of maps 1, 2 and 3. This would allow guild leaders and parties to repeat specific maps together without fear of losing rewards mid-stream.

3. Individual map rewards should be based on map-wide successful completion of events. These events should also sprawl a bit (spread their areas over time) in order to engage more players if the events go unchallenged. For this to work well, all events on the map need to be aware of each other and their states of success or failure. Enabling events to react to each other, even when they are distant from each other, creates dynamic strategic play opportunities for coordinated player groups to overcome [though this may require a separate AI/artificial life server to be optimized fully if procedural AI is not built into NPCs and events.] At the least, this will give players an excuse to stick together and complete events within the map, rather than tag and run. Map success rewards must take into account individual player time invested as it relates to each player’s effort expended. Naturally, event NPCs need to scale properly and quickly according to local numbers and potential player force. To make this work, events must be take off timers completely and based solely on procedural contingencies.

4. To keep new players and casual roamers engaged, all assets involved must offer a nominal reward for participation: loot drops for kills, guild influence for event participation, experience/karma rewards for kills. These breadcrumbs need to be dropped to keep folks interested. Equally, events must be designed to adapt quickly to fluctuating player involvement while retaining a real and present threat of failure. Enabling event sprawl mentioned earlier would assure that “failed” events (those that result in NPCs successfully capturing territory from players) give opposition momentum that players would need to counter to regain competitive advantage.

5. For this event, I would give the Mordrem Spawners a 30 second “fog of war” similar to that of gates in WvW. This would give them a delay before appearing on the compass or overhead map. During this fog period, the spawner spawner would field a number and scale of NPCs calculated to be challenging for the actual number of players active on the map at the time. These initial forces would grow and sprawl outward unless defeated. The effect would be less “shooter zombie/horde mode” and more “RTS turtling attack with donut strategies for flavor”.

6. Base individual rewards during map periods on individual effort expended, relative to potential effort expended. This would mean that a level 18 toon capable of doing X damage to Y foes over Z period would get full rewards only for actually meeting 80% or more of that potential, assessed on a per kill/event basis. A good implementation of this system would mean that level 18 participation would be equally valid and rewarding as level 80 participation.

7. Stop releasing technology demonstrations as if they were content. If you want to test a specific game mechanic for addition to the game, don’t make a big deal out of it: simply add it in a small, unassuming location where it can be tracked over time. If it’s fun, players will find it, talk about it, and point each other toward it while you collect the data you need to justify possibly scaling it up to a larger implementation. Also, focus more on making fun content with the tools and assets currently in the game than recreating the wheel with new game mechanics that aren’t fully tested before release. There are a lot of examples of successful games that repurpose assets to give players fun new play experiences while extending the life of the game as a whole. There are not a lot of examples of successful games that repeatedly create new content that is less fun than the original content.

Edit: Using a six letter a-word for evaluation resulted in being censored with “kitten”; so, I had to go back and change that word. Silly.

This event managed to crash my client (Mac) twice: no rewards for me, since all rewards are based on being present in map for entire period.

Once again, ArenaNet has successfully added “new” content to the game that ignores effort while rewarding presence and mindless zerging.

The most fun I got out of this event so far, after attempting to play it for 2 hours, over 2 days, is being able to say, “the client crash ate my rewards [homework].”

This really feels like a technology demonstration rather than a well thought out set of game mechanics that challenges and entertains players. As a guild leader, it is really hard for me to recommend playing this content with my members, though I feel obligated to help them play if they are so inclined. Having to warn them that any disconnection or map travel can result in them losing all progress toward rewards is ridiculous.

In map chat, players are advocating “tagging in” to each place where there is action and moving on, without even attempting to help complete the local event, in order to maximize rewards. These players are reporting 20 or more blooms per run within a single map. Meanwhile, those of us who are actually attempting to finish a group of mordrem off before moving on are getting 10 or less. There’s nothing fair, strategic or fun about those ratios.

I’ve lost a lot of enthusiasm for the game playing this poorly conceived mess.

The reward system here feels more like an attempt to micromanage how we play, how long we play and where we play. It certainly doesn’t feel like any real recognition for engaging challenging content and overcoming real adversity. Unfortunately, this type of system seems to be the new normal for the game that inevitably has to be tweaked after the fact.

The real question is: what was so wrong with the looting and reward chest systems previously in the game that this new, poorly designed reward system was implemented; and, who’s the “visionary” who approved this new system for public consumption?

The Brown Fang Ardour Legion uses the Gilded Hollows guild hall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq11E-LTDJk

Brown Fang Ardour Legion [BFAL] is currently rebuilding and recruiting.

Brown Fang Ardour Legion is a small, PvX guild, welcoming honourable, open-minded, helpful and sociable players of all levels and creeds. Our goal is to build a fun, loyal group that helps each other explore, enjoy and engage the game. Most of our members are currently located on the east and west coasts of America, with a few members spread across the continent and elsewhere. We don’t care which time zone players are in, which gender they prefer or how old they are as long as they come to have some fun with mature, open-hearted allies.

We play WvW on the Ehmry Bay server; but, welcome players from all servers for PvE and PvP camaraderie.

Note that if your ping in the game is higher than 75 you probably will have too much lag to play effectively in player versus player (PvP) or world versus world (WvW); but, we will be happy to share your company in player versus environment (PvE).

All of our members are expected to have seen and understood our precepts video, above. Further guild information is available in our guild Message of the Day (in game) and via our Twitter feed.

Our member rank structure is relatively flat, classifying by preferred part of the game (PvP/WvW/PvE/PvX) rather than privilege of seniority or favor.

The Brown Fang Ardour Legion is not interested in bloating its ranks with players that don’t get along or play well together. We simply want to be able to form a full party for play at any hour with like-minded players who aren’t interested in exploiting glitches or bullying other players.

Though we consider digital gender to be irrelevant, especially in gaming, this legion is a lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) safe guild where who you sleep with (gay, straight or otherwise) is not an issue as long as it is between mature, consenting people who are not abusing each other.

We do not tolerate hate speech of any kind, even in jest; although, intelligent conversation and wit are always welcome. This means that racist, sexist, ageist or homophobic remarks are grounds for dismissal from our ranks, as are trolling and bullying other players. By extension, we are not a forum for evangelism or proslytising any religion.

You can contact me in game through chat or in-game mail: Brown Fang Thump.9482
We tweet @BrownFangThump.
Our members use Skype and TeamSpeak for voice communications, although text chat is most prevalent.
In WvW, on Ehmry Bay, I most often play as Ethiopia Bloodraven, capturing camps and causing havoc. I’m always down for good company and will gladly teach new players what I know (though my opinions don’t follow the current meta). I do wave a commander tag from time to time, especially if running with guildies.
Of course, I also will respond to messages on this forum.

Players new to Guild Wars 2 can find additional information about how to play the game on the official sites and other web sites. A good starting point is the Online Manual found on the official Guild Wars 2 site, followed by the official Wiki.

Whether you choose to join us or not: have some fun out there—and be excellent to each other.

A new, shorter version of the Brown Fang Ardour Legion recruitment video can now be found on YouTube.

Couldn’t resist the challenge of making a shorter video, especially since our original video clocked in at 35 seconds. This one is just 15 seconds long.

While this event is great for shiggles, what I’d really love to see is an interface in the game that would allow players to watch 10-300 seconds of video provided by guilds for recruiting, educating and entertaining prospective and current guild members. That would be a mind-blowing, informative and useful addition to the game. It might also reduce the need to spam chat with recruiting messages if these videos were persistent in availability (excepting inactive guilds) with some “profile” style annotation.

Baamoink.4281:

We hope you enjoy watching it as much as we did making it

Dig your approach there and your reverence for the game.

Gizmo.9178:

Here is my video I made today!

I’m sure this will make a lot of players laugh as much as I did. I’m not sure how many people who don’t already play the game will be excited about playing after seeing this; but, it’s still very fun for the rest of us.

We currently are using the Gilded Hollows guild hall.

Brown Fang Ardour Legion [BFAL] is currently rebuilding and recruiting.

Brown Fang Ardour Legion is a small, PvX guild, welcoming honourable, open-minded, helpful and sociable players of all levels and creeds. Our goal is to build a fun, loyal group that helps each other explore, enjoy and engage the game. Most of our members are currently located on the east and west coasts of America, with a few members spread across the continent and elsewhere. We don’t care which time zone players are in, which gender they prefer or how old they are as long as they come to have some fun with mature, open-hearted allies.

We play WvW on the Ehmry Bay server; but, welcome players from all servers for PvE and PvP camaraderie.

Note that if your ping in the game is higher than 75 you probably will have too much lag to play effectively in player versus player (PvP) or world versus world (WvW); but, we will be happy to share your company in player versus environment (PvE).

All of our members are expected to have seen and understood our precepts video, above. Further guild information is available in our guild Message of the Day (in game) and via our Twitter feed.

Our member rank structure is relatively flat, classifying by preferred part of the game (PvP/WvW/PvE/PvX) rather than privilege of seniority or favor.

The Brown Fang Ardour Legion is not interested in bloating its ranks with players that don’t get along or play well together. We simply want to be able to form a full party for play at any hour with like-minded players who aren’t interested in exploiting glitches or bullying other players.

Though we consider digital gender to be irrelevant, especially in gaming, this legion is a lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) safe guild where who you sleep with (gay, straight or otherwise) is not an issue as long as it is between mature, consenting people who are not abusing each other.

We do not tolerate hate speech of any kind, even in jest; although, intelligent conversation and wit are always welcome. This means that racist, sexist, ageist or homophobic remarks are grounds for dismissal from our ranks, as are trolling and bullying other players. By extension, we are not a forum for evangelism or proslytising any religion.

You can contact me in game through chat or in-game mail: Brown Fang Thump.9482
We tweet @BrownFangThump.
Our members use Skype and TeamSpeak for voice communications, although text chat is most prevalent.
In WvW, on Ehmry Bay, I most often play as Ethiopia Bloodraven, capturing camps and causing havoc. I’m always down for good company and will gladly teach new players what I know (though my opinions don’t follow the current meta). I do wave a commander tag from time to time, especially if running with guildies.
Of course, I also will respond to messages on this forum.

Players new to Guild Wars 2 can find additional information about how to play the game on the official sites and other web sites. A good starting point is the Online Manual found on the official Guild Wars 2 site, followed by the official Wiki.

Whether you choose to join us or not: have some fun out there—and be excellent to each other.

The Brown Fang Ardour Legion recruitment video can be found on YouTube.

Soldiers, gladia, valiants new and old, the Brown Fang Ardour Legion seeks your honour.

We are a loyal and compassionate PvX guild of helpful, sociable players, focused on having fun with kindred spirits in a LGBTQ safe fellowship. We do not tolerate hate speech, racism, sexism or homophobia, even in jest, because we do not condone anonymous cowardice.

When you are ready, when you are strong enough to bear the full weight of your convictions, rise up to this challenge, take up arms against whatever monsters you find in the world and crush their evils under foot.

Join the Brown Fang Ardour Legion, heroes and heroines of Tyria, Avengers of the Dispossessed.

Contact in game: /whisper B F A L Recruiter or Brown Fang Thump.9482
Outside of GW2: Tweeting @BrownFangThump and on Ehmry.com via BrownFangThump

Thank you for your time and consideration.

PS.: I know it’s a bit melodramatic and over-the-top; but, it was a kick writing and editing this stuff. Video and audio from ArenaNet, with voice over by me.

Thanks for giving me something different to do Gaile.

Edit 2015.August.26: Added link below.
Our Latest Recruitment Post On This Forum Is Here

Also, thank you all for your positive responses to our efforts.

Do you think that rewarding players with coin or loot for helping others is constructive or simply a way to coax players who wouldn’t bother otherwise into doing something for others to complete a track in the game?

I’ve been helping other players since launch, without any expectation of payment or reward outside of knowing that I helped somebody. I’m sure there are many others who have done this too. For people like us, getting coin or loot for helping others isn’t a goal worth having. There’s no way to quantify and monetize the gift of giving.

Outside of a ranking and verification system, possibly tied to some testimonials or reviews, I don’t think there needs to be any reward for truly, thoughtfully helping other players.

How long will it take to complete all options in this mastery line?

It seems to me that any mastery line that takes less than 112 hours of play to complete will guarantee that players will finish it “and become bored” rather quickly. I would prefer that all masteries take 480+ play hours to complete so that we don’t run into a situation where the majority of the community has all masteries completed by zerging for mastery points. Long acquisition cycles will give us a reason to be more selective about which masteries we choose while also adding diversity to the community.

Does the Pact Commander trait line give players the ability and interface for commanders to actually issue orders to other players (preferably in the form of dynamic events or guild events) or is the term “commander” here a misnomer as it has been for the Commander Tag?

Obviously, you are aware of the controversies spawned by the ability to simply buy a commander tag, rather than earn it, and the limitations that commanders in the game currently operate under. The ability of commanders to issue real objectives within the game, beyond text/voice chat, would give these players real, strategic control in wvw and pve. Although resurrecting allies quickly and moving with speed are niceties, these things don’t have the flavor of “leadership qualities” (though good commanders should make a real effort to help their followers as much as possible).

Commanders should earn the right to hold sway over other players by honorable and noble acts that allow groups and individuals to successfully complete game objectives. Otherwise, the “follow-the-leader” zerg gameplay of the current commander tags will continue to prevail, without promoting or rewarding true leadership.

If commanders are able to issue orders of any kind in the game, will these commanders be ranked according to the relative success/failure of those orders (as they should be)?

This would help to weed out trolls and poor leaders from those who are actually helpful and positive members of the community. It might also help decrease the “me too phenomenon” that often occurs (players putting their commander tags up when they see that another player with a tag is successfully leading a group).

I created a new account, on a new email address, with my HoT purchase.

Up side: extra daily rewards and 5 extra toon slots for 50 USD.

Down side: no HoT pre-purchase title on my main account (don’t care) and no playing HoT with my original toons (still don’t care)

I get to play HoT regardless and Anet gets to spend my money like they want to: win/win.

Since I had the gems already, I did “buy” an extra toon slot for my original account because I anticipate eventually being able to buy HoT for my original account with gems some time in the future.

Your mileage may vary. Do what’s fun for ya

@Orpheal

I suggested something similar to the “Black Board” idea months ago in the Guild Hall CDI. As I mentioned in my original post here, I’d prefer a LFG tool for guilds; but, banners are an inferior alternative I’d settle for.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

As long as all the information on a number of banners doesn’t crash the server or cause lag. I’ve heard of people crashing servers by placing large numbers of items down in one area. If there is a site where guilds go to place recruitment banners then even if it’s only one per guild, a lot of banners in the area could cause problems.

When the banner error was prevalent a while ago, I was in new Lion’s Arch when a happy face and several arrows were “drawn” on the map with banners. This didn’t cause any noticeable lag or crashes on my client (Mac Beta) and there weren’t any complaints about lag or crashes in map chat.

Although I could see how a large number of interactions on multiple banners could place a significant load on a server (kind of like a denial of service attack), I would guess that this would be easily addressed by capping the maximum number of banners on a map similarly to how minis are limited. Having a small character limit for guild messages would also help, which is why I suggested the chat text character length. Of course, optimized packet handling would help as well.

That being said, the number of interactions a set of banners gets at a world boss event is probably much higher than the number a guild recruitment banner might get in Rata Sum or even Lion’s Arch. So, I don’t think the system is incapable of handling the load.

I realize that HoT development is in crunch time at the moment and that this probably won’t make into the game at launch; but, it would be nice to get some feedback on it and see something eventually.

It would seem that since banners remain in maps for specific amounts of time and can be gated via build/acquisition time they are a perfect way for guilds to recruit new members without spamming chat. If a recruitment banner could hold about the same amount of text as a single chat message it would give players enough information to make decent decisions. When placed with other banners, a recruitment banner could also promote a specific guild much more reliably than a /map chat message, over a longer period of time.

Personally, I would prefer a “Looking for Guild” tool, similar to the looking for group tool that is already in the game, possibly with some server generated specifications (like active members, percentage of play in wvw/pvp/pve, average concurrent players); but, if we can’t get that, I’d settle for recruitment banners.

What do you think?

We would also like to mount a solid PvE squad for taking world bosses and dungeons.

One of our goals is to build a strong WvW group of 5-25 players who can spread chaos throughout a map efficiently.

Brown Fang Ardour Legion is currently looking to bolster its ranks with honourable PvE, WvW and PvP players who have a sense of whimsy and an appreciation for veracity.

We are a small Ehmry Bay based guild in North America, now welcoming helpful, sociable, open-minded and kind PvX players from all servers. Whether you are new to the game or have been playing since beta, we invite you to join us as we look forward to enjoying everything that the game has to offer.

Our main focus in the game is having fun with kindred spirits.

Although our primary language is English, we gladly welcome those to whom English is a secondary or tertiary language. We are a lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, queer positive and safe guild that doesn’t think chosen gender identification is relevant in any video game. We do not tolerate racism, sexism, ageism or homophobia, even in jest.

We are compassionate. We are few. We are ardently playing and fervently alive.

When you are ready to join us, use in-game mail to request an invite from Brown Fang Thump.9482 (make sure you include those spaces) or /whisper me anytime in game. Although you can also reach me via mail here on the forum, response will be slower here than in the game.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I would really enjoy having something like this similar to TF2. Learning new maps would be much easier.

As old as TF2 is, it’s amazing how many of their good pvp ideas still haven’t made it into GW2. There are so many other games out there with popular, intuitive systems. I’d given up on thinking that Anet devs were even keeping these things on their radar, as the focus seems to be on re-inventing the wheel for everything pvp.

It’s good to see someone at ArenaNet acknowledge the value of pvp design that could inform GW2 design.

Excellent, thorough review there Jekkt. Thank you for taking all that time to write everything down. Hopefully developers will take note and make some solid changes.

Lyrsen.6702:

Damage numbers can be changed pretty easily, cast times on weapon skills and legend skills are a bit harder since they have to change the animation for the new cast time. Traits are probably the hardest thing to change or re-make.

It would be a shame if ArenaNet decided to forego changing effectiveness or game mechanics for the sake of keeping their pretty animations and particle effects.

In the end, it won’t matter how beautiful a revenant looks in combat if it remains a slow, ineffective profession that requires other professions to support its activities in the game.