Guild Wars 2

See also the entire history of Guild Wars 1. Well, until the game was put into (entirely understandable) low-maintenance mode and we got to feather farm unhindered.

Southsun is terrible, but then it’s a poorly executed story module set on an island which was irritating even before the event chain was put on it.

Put simply: if Southsun gave the same quality of loot rewards as Orr, very few people would be playing it. It’s Arenanet’s standard means of getting people to play new content that isn’t actually as well-executed or as fun as the existing content (see also: fractals and the ‘ascended gear’ PR debacle).

These problems happen whenever there is peak load – is your world winning more than it usually does in WvW this week due to the unbalanced matchups? We’ve had this problem in Gandara: lots of new players (or ‘glory hunters’ if one wants to be uncharitable) start logging in to WvW because we’re winning, so the server load (and consequent lag/disconnects) gets much worse than usual.

This is just a fact of life with Guild Wars: in GW1 there would be crippling lag every holiday event, so that you had to login 20-30 minutes before the finale to be sure of actually getting to login. I think it’s a case of Arenanet being either unwilling (for financial reasons) or unable (due to game/server architecture reasons) to provide increased capacity: if there was going to be a fix, it would have been provided by now.

With Lion’s Arch unable to cope with its normal server load (traders, and fractals access) holding holiday events exclusively in Lion’s Arch seems daft even without considering the pluralism/player population issues you raise.

Or maybe it could be like the extra daily categories in that completing the challenges at their current level gives the laurel reward, but people then have the option of doing increased tiers (1000 veterans, or whatever) for extra achievement points / for the sake of it / etc.

Hopefully the same will apply to the adorable Mini Hippo Calf, which I missed. Roll on next spring

If you don’t like rubbish odds then don’t buy real-money lottery tickets.

Swearing isn’t the problem. Personal abuse is the problem. So saying “Oh kitten” when you jump off a cliff by mistake probably won’t get you banned, saying “kitten you” to someone who wouldn’t let you join their fractals group probably will.

In summary: it is possible to swear without engaging in personal abuse, and it is possible to engage in personal abuse without swearing (racism, homophobia etc.).

Ratphink.4751:

This entire point has absolutely nothing to do with Free Speech being infringed upon, because you all agreed to obey the rules that they set up. This is not the United States, nor is this Canada, or Cuba, or Russia, or any other specific geographical location on the globe.

The first half of that quote is true, the second is not. Online interactions are indeed governed by the law of nation states – usually, but not always, the law of the country where the server is located. So if the server someone is interacting with is in the United States, then the interaction is (usually) covered by US law. In fact, the Terms of Service specifically opts for Austin, Texas as its governing jurisdiction in the choice of law clause.

The fact that (as you correctly point out) free speech laws both in the USA and in Europe (I’m less familiar with other places) do not apply to private premises is an entirely separate issue: private premises are excluded from those laws by the terms of those laws (US constitution: “Congress shall make no law restricting…”, ECHR: “The High Contracting Parties [national governments] shall secure…”).

Elochai.1280:

you aren’t protected under free speech same goes for other private places and schools even. You can’t just say whatever you want where ever you want.

Private schools certainly. However most schools are operated by the government and are therefore covered by the free speech guarantees on both sides of the Atlantic. Of course school administrators get fairly substantial discretion so that schools can actually function, but that is leeway within the free speech protections rather than non-application of free speech protections.

As occasionally happens in this game (too often IMHO, YMMV), I’m currently unable to play my main character because Arenanet’s insufficient server capacity is causing the game to fail to load (into Southsun Cove).

Since eight years of similar problems in Guild Wars 1 & 2 suggest that the server capacity issue will probably not be resolved any time soon, perhaps the problem could instead be addressed with a ‘character rescue’ button? If the game fails to load the map the character is in say three times in a row, the player is given the choice to load into Lion’s Arch (or perhaps their racial capital, since LA has many of the same problems) instead.

This would allow players to at least play their character, if not the actual content they wanted to play, until the number of customers wanting to play that content is low enough for the servers to cope. Opinions?

I’ve now tried on ten straight occasions to load my character (in Southsun Cove) and getting the same failures as I was getting in WvW a couple of days ago. This really isn’t funny any more Arenanet.

Don’t worry, it isn’t your connection. The servers have been borked (well, more than usual) since the May 30th update.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Because….? Badges of Honor are the standard WvW base reward.

Note: “Because I felt like it” and “Because I said so” are not acceptable reasons.

Because at peak times it would stop valuable WvW slots being taken up by people who don’t actually play WvW.

The Last Hobbit.6492:

It’s absolutely awful for me too and I’m on 78mbit fibre-optic BT Infinity.

I have very little issue elsewhere, even at large-scale world events it’s not too bad.

But in WvW, around large fights, the lag is insane. Skills often take 10+ seconds to activate, I find myself running into door portals for 10 seconds, then rubber banding back for another 10! (Bear in mind, that during this whole issue, my FPS is a steady 60.)

Unplayable.

Considering I’ve completed everything else, I’m kind of at a loss. I’ve got very little else to do on GW2.

Anyone else remember the 15-20 minute queues to get into Competitive Missions in GW1? Arenanet have always provided inadequate server capacity and then blamed the resulting problems on their customers’ hardware configuration.

I’m the same. Been getting lag spikes for the past week, but the May 30th patch made WvW entirely inaccessible (I get the error 7:etc:etc after about 5 minutes of loading screen). PvE still works, sort of, though it takes longer to load than it normally does and is prone to the odd lag-spike.

The -diag log shows the connection working fine until it gets to your servers (.plaync.com) when it suffers 100% packet loss. Other online games (Mount & Blade Warband: Napoleonic Wars, Company of Heroes) are working fine on the same computer and internet connection.

Location: Scotland
ISP: BT
Server: Gandara

morrolan.9608:

Carzor Stelatis.9435:

greyblue.4962:

Any other changes people can think of that might be needed? It seems like those two, along with the elementalist nerfs incoming should do the trick.

What elementalist nerfs? Genuine question, just came back to the game after a month and a bit.

Its a bit of a nerf to cantrips eles but not much really, its just going to force more people into playing a bunker ele.

Ah that’s OK (for me anyway), not a cantrips player myself. Was just worried I’d miss some dreadnought-class nerfbat on the horizon :P

Raptured.9307:

Lol @ ele change. @ 3rd attunement swap all attacks start healing the opponent?
I can already see it now – guilds sending their eles on opponent servers and having them sign up for wvw.

No, stacks in GW2 are multiplicative not additive/subtractive. So after the third attunement swap the attacks would do 1/8 of their normal damage (1 × 0.5 × 0.5 x 0.5).

greyblue.4962:

Any other changes people can think of that might be needed? It seems like those two, along with the elementalist nerfs incoming should do the trick.

What elementalist nerfs? Genuine question, just came back to the game after a month and a bit.

Only a WvW player sacrifices a life just to plant a Static Field or Line of Warding in the lord room entrance.

synch.2980:

Your character, and it’s voice remain the same, of course, so if that’s a concern then you’re pretty much stuck with rerolling to another race.

The one-voice-per-race thing is a bit silly. With all the voice acting that was recorded for this game, they have a peer speaking in precisely the same accent as a middle class or poor person? [human obviously] Really?

Realise it’s a tiny issue in a huge game but it does bug me slightly :P

This same issue was raised in GW1, when ‘too many people’ had 15k armour or even Vabbi armor. The obvious answer is: so what? Other people having legendaries doesn’t make your character’s Kudzu or whatever look any worse, just as 10,000 other people having Dervish Asuran Armor in GW1 didn’t make that look any less awesome.

PS: I don’t have a legendary

John Smith.4610:

That UI is for US Tax, VAT is added into the price. We pay 20% on all transactions from Europe.

$10 equals €7.49. If you add on the 20% VAT (which is fair enough), the total is €8.98. Where does the other €1.02 of overcharge come from?

alcopaul.2156:

I see many people hating on RNG.

BUT..

Life is based on RNG. Your conception was RNG. Out of 375 million sperm cells, one only get to fuse with one eggcell and formed you.

1/375000000. that’s still worse than the mystic forge.

What relevance does real life have to the question of how to make a video game as enjoyable as it can be? In real life soldiers who are killed by an air attack don’t click ‘Respawn now’ and magically come back to life. In real life there aren’t giant super-Vikings who can turn into bears.

This is the case in quite a few other games (Skyrim and the Assassin’s Creed series are two that come to mind). There’s also the problem that the borderlands maps in WvW are designed to require water-jumping for efficient movement from the defenders’ Garrison to other parts of the map. So adding water fall damage would require a complete redesign of at least three maps (not to mention reworking of some PvE zones).

The zone-specific dailies mentioned in this will be a terrible idea, unless waypoint travel to that zone is free for the duration of the daily achievement. Dailies that you have to spend 12 silver to get - fabulous *facepalm*

(4 silver-ish for lv80 map travel, x3: from current location to first daily zone, then to second daily zone, then back to where you actually want to play)

Runo.2759:

WHAT: Farm! Just farm! Farming involves the repeated slaughtering of innocent monsters such as the level cave trolls in Frostgorge Sound, or whatever you can handle. You still get level 80 items (greens, blues, yellows…) and any level materials relevant to your farming zone of choice.

It gives me a nice sentimental feeling inside that, nearly eight years, three expansions, and an entirely new game later, Guild Wars players are still farming cave trolls

Acension.9270:

Heya, i really want to transfer over to Desolation because i wasn’t able to change before the patch. When i looked at how much it would be, it was 1800 gems, that’s around about £25. Or, i have been told, 40 gold, this has really made me feel like i’m stuck in the world i am in and it has now really annoyed me.

I hope this doesn’t sound like a rant but i just dont no what to do????

Well you can thank the cheat guilds in WvW. Anet were quite happy for there to be free world transfers, but the cheat guilds used free transfers as a WvW ranking exploit, so free transfers had to end.

John Smith.4610:

Gasoline.2570:

Except right now the few people who are buying their legendaries are spending the money on gold sellers instead of anet, but, then again, we don’t know if anet or ncsoft has directly any involvement with those gold sellers. Who knows.

Goldsellers are a plague on the gaming industry, plain and simple, I would sooner associate with Ralphie from “The League”… much, much sooner

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Gold-sellers-vs-BLTC/first#post581941

If gold sellers are a plague on the gaming industry, then why are Anet selling ingame gold for ‘real world’ money? Surely the effect on players is the same (ie players can acquired in-game benefits they haven’t earned by playing the game) regardless of whether it’s Anet doing the gold selling or some other company doing the gold selling?

Zlociutki.9165:

You can always buy a Revive Orb from TP.

Guess they have to sell the cash shop cheat items somehow. This is the only concerning element for me about this change: it looks as if they made the game less fun in order to make people buy more cash shop items. That’s a very slippery, very steep slope for any buy-to-play MMO.

The other more fundamental problem with this mechanic is that it ignores the emptiness of most of the game world (thanks to the permanent ‘world’ system rather than GW1’s dynamic districts). Unless you’re in either a starting area or Orr (the only places likely to have other people in them), you’re locked out of today’s Daily.

Happening in Gandara. The rollbacks seem to be getting more frequent too.

It’s the first day of the new changes, give them time. When something utterly breaks a game mode Anet will fix it. For example the free world transfers (which many PvE players had wanted) were cancelled entirely due to exploit guilds using them to cheat the WvW ranking system. If this is still broken in a fortnight with no fix announced, then we can call it ridiculous.

I’m guessing that folk bought stacks of them hoping that the new content would use them in some way, then sold them off when it became clear it didn’t.

Gelltor.3015:

Whelp,I won’t be allowed play as a ranger anymore with out "search and. Rescue" equipped it seems :P

Lying to BWI* pugs about what you’re running is part and parcel of playing Guild Wars

* BWI: Build Wars Inquisition

Papaj.9035:

Turn that glass Ele into a Thief or a Warrior, and guess what, bunker loses every time. Now, it might take 5-10 minutes, depending upon skill levels of the individuals, but the damage/sustainability of the glass cannon Thief/Warrior far exceeds the capabilities of the bunker Ele. And even if the Ele was REALLY good and managed to get the Thief/Warrior low, POOF! Vanish away/gap closer gap opener (sorry, I had to do it) and live to fight another day because poor play is NOT punished.

If you’re trying to out-fight a Warrior in melee using a squishy class then you’re doing it wrong.

Eowin Of Rohan.2619:

My idea is that traders in GW2 are nothing more than parasites (while in gw1 they could bring added value because of their work, in gw2 they are useless because of TP), and they exploit the TP to get money out of the community.

They aren’t useless. They provide a significant bridge between people who want to sell instantly and people who want to buy instantly. They also help the GW2 economy by increasing the amount that goes to the sales tax goldsink and thus reducing inflation.

Larkir.6502:

So I just received 250 more cogs in the mail, despite having already opened the chest. Problem is, I already have all the minipets. I had been told a dev had confirmed we’d only be able to obtain enough cogs to craft two of the five minipets. Had I known I would get another 250 cogs from the mail I wouldn’t have bought all of the remaining ones from the gem store.

Now, I understand why you might wanna send out 200 cogs: both to remedy the first cog bug, but also to give them to the people who were unable to obtain the cogs from the chest. What I don’t understand is why’d you send 250 cogs to everyone after saying you wouldn’t be able to craft more than two minis! What will I do with these 450 leftover cogs when there’s no use for them anymore?

If someone from ArenaNet could confirm the cogs will have a use in the future It’d feel okay and I’ll save them for next year, but right now I feel tricked by ArenaNet making me buy things that people that waited got for free.. Even if I’m wrong and a dev has never said what I’ve been told they’ve said, we all have at least 200 spare cogs right now and nothing to do with them. So a confirmation or clarification would be nice.

The Arenanet dev in question said that you would be able to make 2 out of the 5 minipets by doing the five dungeons. He never said that this would be the only way to obtain them. As for next year, I suspect the ‘input’ materials will be the same (cogs, glue, stuffing) but the frames will be different (ie a new ‘series’ of wintersday minis).

docledd.9682:

It was stated. Why this would elicit an official response is beyond me. It was said there are 5 distinct events and thats it. Anyone with first grade math could have realized the total number of cogs after day one.

So anyone could have worked out that 5 dungeons times 100 cogs a time equals 700 cogs? Funny maths you have there

Illiander.8049:

Seriously, they put that up on Youtube rather than their own website?

My opinion of their PR department keeps getting worse and worse.

This. The game itself is great, it’s the fact that Anet lurch from one customer service fiasco to another that’s the problem.

Mizuki Kusanagi.6584:

Me, I’m still trying to get through the JP after about 6 hours of trying, while others are claiming to have completed on their first few tries.

Horses for courses?

The difference with the jumping puzzle is that it’s only your own skill that’s stopping you from completing it (I haven’t either btw), whereas with the Toypocalypse it’s often the skill level of the randoms that the broken party system pairs you with.

Demorgoth.1205:

Oh, and it’s a MMO, not a LAN party. Stick your head out of the safety of your circle and you might find new friends

Being able to choose to group with new people (as with the Infinirarium events) is fine. Being forced out of the party you’d formed and put into a group with random halfwits isn’t.

eXs.6210:

rivurivurivurivu.3041:

Siphaed.9235:

rivurivurivurivu.3041:

I just want to know if this event will have a reward worth playing for. Like the lost shore. Thats all.

I’m going to say “no”, just so that you’ll not play it. I really don’t know if there’s a reward or not, but if that’s your only motivation then by all means don’t join in the holiday festivities.

I’m glad that A.Net never announced the rewards for the killing of the Ancient Karka, as the only people that participated were those wanting to actually do the event (though some expecting a large reward were there, they just had no idea).

So, with this event, I instead ask that if there is any such reward that A.Net again not tell anyone and that only those that participate for the sake of it would get it.

P.S. When I hear of people not wanting to do anything unless they get “uber rewarding loots”, it only makes me think of Scrooge.

Just want to plan my day, many users like me will be busy that day and knowing that we will miss something big (like a precursor) will help us plan better.

Also everyone play this game as they want, saying that we dont deserve a reward because we dont participate in the events is unfair.

Im sure many of us give up the karka event because was a lag fest and or have other things to do and im sure that a lot of us would love to participate if we knew about that chest.

May I have some fractal pieces cause I enjoy wvw more??? Thats silly… We went from winning stuff during events, to getting stuff just for participating, to now getting stuff regardless? Seriously, was it asking too much to log in and get 1 hit in on the karka?

Funny you should mention that: Anet have stated that Ascended gear will be obtainable by methods other than Fractal grinding (they specifically mentioned WvW) some time in the new year, and that it was a significant error to restrict the obtaining a whole new category of gear to a tiny part of the game.

Metafrank.9017:

Who needs a gamemode that could be lots of fun theoretically to actually BE fun if you can just make some achievement easier.

Also try other products Anet’s new “Who cares if something is fun, as long as it’s rewarding”-way of thinking: The Karka event and ascended gear.

The Karka event would have been fun if they’d bothered to rent enough server capacity (see also game launch, see also Halloween launch, see also Wintersday launch). I got in on one of the ’late-running instances (by then it was early morning in Europe so the server load was lighter) and it was actually pretty fun to do.

Wow, I’m pleasantly surprised. There have been plenty of things wrong with events before, but for once Anet are actually offering a fix (of sorts). Here’s hoping that future PvE instances will actually be programmed as PvE instances rather than being subject to silly, fun-sapping restrictions because the programmers used the PvP code as a lazy shortcut. Still, this is a Good thing.

BaZomic.8392:

This is outrageous!!! haha jk

But yeah, dev said we will only be able to create two out of the 5 when wintersday started so I picked up the others on the TP. If that wasn’t true I want my money back for one of the pets i purchased!

He said you’d be able to make 2 out of the 5 pets by playing all five days. He didn’t say anything – positive or negative – about afterwards.

Thord.2017:

It does seem weird. 200 cogs are worth the same as 0 cogs as far as minis are concerned.

And there’s no other use for cogs since you can’t sell them and there’s nothing else to craft with them.

Must admit I’m slightly baffled by this one too. I assume these new ones are still account-bound? Unless it’s a mistake (and was supposed to be 250), I can fathom why Anet would include a useless item in the Tixx chest.

You can’t – it’s random. But in all honesty you aren’t missing much. The event’s been great so far, but Toypocalypse really is terrible. Enemy numbers clearly designed for 8-player parties but it’s a 5-player instance, and the whole thing is as if someone at Anet looked at pre-balance Eternal Grove and thought “That, made 4x longer, would be a great event instance!”

It’s not gambling – the US courts certainly have considered this (in the context of the physical equivalent – those ‘gumball machine’ type things for kids that give out a random toy). Basically I think the distinction was that you’re purchasing a random product (which of course may be of high or low value) but with gambling you pay money and have a random chance to receive money (directly) in return.

SpedalFlux.1520:

on a different note, Anet have you have ANY idea how insanely big of a put off the amount of gold is? with 2100g buy offer, i bet 99% of the players can only dream of having that much, with the average player like me only owning 30g, when i saw the 2100g it was extremely depressing and put me off the game so much, knowing that someone can easily buy from gold sellers and get anything they want whilst we here farm for months and can barely afford a precursor.

You’re forgetting that Guild Wars 2 is different from Guild Wars 1. Whereas the message used to be “people who sell ingame gold for real money are scum” it is now “people who sell ingame gold for real money are scum, except when we do it”

Oorjuwa.1682:

I have put the carrier of the gift to down state and its not working, you have to kill.

Edit: tbh it should not be this way. Making the carrier drop the gift should be enough. People that do not like PvP such as myself should not be forced into this for the sake of an achievement and title.

If you don’t like PvP why are you bothered about a PvP title?

We are paying customers, not gift recipients. We are therefore entitled to complain if we are not receiving a standard of service we think is acceptable. Event is awesome though.