Guild Wars 2

Stick to W1 zones 1 and 2, there are no difficult jumps in those when doing basic completion. Run the zones through in infantile first, to get familiar with the flow of the zone. If you go beyond W1 then the bit about infantile does not apply (look for video guides), as in W2 infantile mode skips checkpoints, and with the new “shortcuts” in W2, there is now in effect two ways to go through them.

Video guides are the best if you want to go after baubles more than just a daily run for the 12 bubbles or so.

Collecting the issues I have seen with SAB in this post.

W1: Jumping mushrooms are different (same for trampolines in W2, I think).

By this I mean that they react differently, it is now harder to kill momentum while bouncing and sometimes the bouncing stops entirely with no action on my part until I manually jump in place.

W2: Infantile clouds for the long route are missing in Z2 only.

This isn’t really a bug, I just find it interesting that Z3 has most of the infantile clouds intact when Z2 is missing a few. Fun fact, some of the old hand pointers from infantile mode remain on the long path, but the clouds are not there… includes one defunct teleporter as well.

W2: Ice has gotten lot more slippery than it used to be in “Back to School”.

I don’t know if this actually has to do with the ice or some latency compensation adjustments, however, just as with the jumping shrooms from time to time, killing your momentum is way harder. To be honest it feels like I am playing with decent amount of input lag most of the time (this only happens on ice, and from time to time with shrooms, so no it isn’t real input lag).

General issues/differences:

Bombs: This has been brought up several times here already, but the bombs don’t have the same trajectory as they used to. They seem to edge downward… thus they don’t have the same range as they used to.

Also, not that it will help really, since you unlock that secret pretty late… however, once you can get the wooden whistle and unlock shatter serenade from a secret in W2 Z3 those icicles, both the damaging and the platform kind, will drop simply by playing that tune (you have to visit the secret for it to work, so no point in me giving the notes here).

The whistle is super useful anyways, since the tune used to open the mouth like secrets can also be used to put the regular blowing ones to sleep (though afaik, that only works on one at a time).

Of course, if we don’t get more worlds, the only place you can make use of these two tricks is in W2 Z3 and pretty late at that.

Squishy.3694:

Action cam is the way I found slingshot works best. Note that it only shoots at the same level you are at, and won’t fire upwards or downwards.

I guess it sort of works, but not really, as in you’ll only benefit from the camera control bit turning your character, and at that point imo. the “crosshair” is misleading.

As for bombs, they throw different than they used to way back when, if I had to guess they have less height and/or distance than they used to.

The disappointment is real…

Well there seems to be other differences too, but its a kitten shame you can’t play FPS SAB ;(

reapex.8546:

Has anyone has issues throwing bombs? I try tossing the bombs to break the icicles but the throw are weak. They don’t like in Dulfy’s video at 12:29 mins:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6MEdbqRXtw

Is this bugged or is there some special way to throw the bomb?

Some things with the bombs and slingshot have definitely changed, I noticed it in 2-3 as well when trying to make icicle platforms. I managed to get throught by using the slingshot (has longer range) and finding a different spot to shoot from in some instances.

When it comes to W2 Z3., the differences in physics become easy to spot if you played this years ago. For one the ice that basically the whole third zone is made off of is way more slippery than it used to be, dunno why… maybe they adjusted lag compensation or something else too.

Edit: although this makes me wonder, how well were the “classic” or long versions of W2 tested this time around… they are still needed for achievements after all. There is also something weird going on with the jump mushrooms in W1 for example, sometimes the momentum doesn’t stop when it should, or at times you land on a shroom and you don’t bounce before jumping again manually.

GoldenTruth.2853:

Also I liked how you changed world 2-2 and 2-3. It feels kind of weird knowing how much was cut to make it shorter, but you can still do the non-skips if you so choose/want the achievements, and those levels were far to long anyway.

Well the ice skater achievement sure was easy to do, this time around… but other than that you are absolutely right. And it definitely feels weird, I mean there are quite literally whole mechanics you don’t ever have to see if you take the speedy exits.

By the way, has anyone noticed that W2 Z3 is way more slippery than it used to be the icicle platforms are way harder to stay on same with the icy bridges that disappear. So easy to slide into totally wrong direction and straight off the bridge we go…

The jumping feels bit different too, things that used to be easier or even trivial are now more tricky (case and point with the ice bridges, especially the one that ends in mid air with disappearing bits) and some things that used to tough are easier.

Duke Darkwood.4237:

Kal Spiro.9745:

It’s great to get it, but it’s sad to think we’ll never see World 3 or 4 nor save the princess.

I don’t think I’d go that far – unless we get Word From Above saying that it will never happen.

I understand their reasoning for focusing on the game as a whole at this time, with a still-fresh expansion. But I think that, in time, they will have the opportunity to progress the Box. At the very least, we don’t have to wait that long simply for it to re-open, and the announcement implies it will do so annually from now on.

…. Still…. it would be really nice to hear a dev say that they will – in due time! – add the rest of the game-within-a-game. I can be patient, but I really would like to know (not just hope) that back-burnering it doesn’t mean throwing it away, and I’m sure others do as well.

I basically agree with everything you said there, definitely would be nice to get some clarification. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, as I am I having a blast… however, when I think of a a reality where we get this festival little more than copied for the next X years I already know, no matter how much I enjoy SAB I’ll run out of meaningful things to go after sooner or later. Right now, while the new rewards are nice I am mostly having a blast because I have things still to do from Back to School.

Now what I want to know next is will this be all of SAB forevermore or are the two remaining worlds still on the table for the later iterations of this new festival coming up in the following years.

Khyan.7039:

Sird.4536:

Would SAB make people feel better about the scrapped legendaries or the fact the April update looks more like a QoL update rather than a content update? For me it won’t but It doesn’t mean i wouldn’t play the hell out of it.

I will personally feel better, since it’s a content I waiting for 2 years.

Ditto, and while I think scrapping the legedaries sucks I can live with it (disclaimer: I main a thief so I get a legendary finally that isn’t unicorns and rainbows, but it still sucks for everyone else).

Going to link these here, just in case SAB is actually coming (yes it may seem likely but it is still just a rumour), since they are tricky to find these days.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/sab
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/sab-bts

Read up on a piece of history right there.

Dragon.8762:

Well, you can always reply Rytlock’s Critter Rampage if you want the closest things to SAB as soon as possible:

https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/rampage/index.html

Heh, the funny thing is… that is actually harder than SAB in my opinion., before you get the hang of it.

Aedelric.1287:

You might want to link the Reddit thing so everyone else knows exactly what you are talking about Egzius.

I agree, I have seen the reddit thing too… and it really is either a cruel joke by one of the involved parties or it is a sign of things to come.

Scipio.3204:

Rozalina.3196:

That would to an amazing april fools gift to have super adventure box world 3 to come out. It would be like an anniversary of world 1. I’M SO EXCITED.

Please don’t be. With anet it’s always better to be surprised than to be excited. I know it’s hard, it took me way too much time to learn this lesson

I agree, the number of people straight out expecting it to come on April 1st (again) probably is way larger than it should be considering all the facts.

Personally, I am curious though… I mean it has been so long now, what is the ratio of people interested in SAB (ie. all inclusive) to those who were here last time and are still here and waiting.

doombreaker.3710:

I don’t think that we will see SAB in 2016 now that they have even postponed the legendary weapons.

The way I see it, as long as Josh doesn’t put in his notice and/or isn’t poached by another company there is still hope… a slim hope mind you, however, at this point considering we have literally no content aside from PvP and raids, it is hard to fault them for the legendaries.

Sure, it sucks, but think of it this way, SAB was created by less than 6 people if memory serves, so that could have a big positive impact down the line on content in general.

Felahr.9830:

Buddy, there is a kittenton more things to do in this game than a minigame that hasnt been around for years

Except that right now there really isn’t… don’t like raids, got your fill out of HoT, well sucks to be you. If you happened to like WvW, sucks to be you even more.

The fact is anything that is not PvP or raids at the moment… has very few things to do for people who have played for a long time. Sure, you can invent personal goals out of legendaries and stuff like that (where are the new legendaries again?), but if those were things you are interested in you’d already be working towards them they wouldn’t need to be pointed out to you.

There is a content drought right now, unless you happen to like a very particular kind of content. That, is an undeniable fact. It wouldn’t necessarily have to be SAB that addresses that, but at this time of the year people who liked it will reminisce about it.

Gaile Gray.6029:

You guys — SAB is coming back. Colin said it. It’s true. This is positive and definite and no I don’t have a date and I know you’d like to have one but that’s not possible but… it’s coming back. Posts that proclaim it’s not coming are not just wrong — they’re dead wrong. Posts that express upset about the coin — while I understand them — will be moot when SAB returns. Which will happen.

All I can say is keep your chin up, because it’s going to happen.

Gaile, why must you do this… to us and to yourself. I am having a huge feeling of déjà vu right now. Oh wait, that’s because this has actually happened before, twice in fact, March 10th and October 1st going back this topic in order (note: forum software not showing year on the post dates is annoying).

I mean it is nice that there are statements form ArenaNet staff on the matter, and I know you probably mean well, but trying to reinforce this point like this (ie. with nothing new) will probably have the opposite to the desired effect on people at this point.

Personally, I can’t help but to feel as if the people that still, after all these years, check back on this topic every so often are simply being led on and on with nothing to show for it.

It is not that I think this is your intent, however, that is how it will end up being like until someone over there makes a commitment that is more than a vague sometime in the indeterminate future. Why? Because until that happens and it actually has a slot on the road map… it will simply never happen, or it might as well be the same thing anyways.

Every state of the game blog and every quarterly update (or whatever the official term is these days for stuff that is not living story) that doesn’t imply SAB in some way will only mean that there was something more important that took all the resources for live update content development… and it is simply a self-repeating cycle forevermore. When living story will be thing again there will be even less of a chance for this cycle to break.

TL;DR: Despite what you say, SAB will remain in the vicious cycle of being second class citizen and be edged out by everything else, before it actually has a release window, because without such a commitment there will always be something that you already announced that takes priority.

Coldtart.4785:

I did it before the patch at the scaling sweet spot, it was just as easy as it is now.

I agree, the challenge before the patch wasn’t so much the event itself than it was getting right number of people on the 1 or 2 lanes where the scaling was the worst. That and getting people to stay put after finishing their lanes.

I assume that at the very beginning the no CC thing was also important but then that too became just something enough people knew about and stopped being an issue on most lanes.

At the end of the day, considering the Tangled Depths meta was an only outlier as far as HoT meta’s go, the fact that the difficulty was unintended at it’s original state is likely or at the very least plausible.

Tumult.2578:

Want to see SAB back in operation?
Find a way for them to make money off it in the gem shop.

Minis and Tribulation mode + ICC isn’t that way? Yes the latter is controversial (though not pay to win as some like to claim), but you were only asking for ways to monetize the content. They have had those since the beginning.

Mandragoran.2854:

I bought two more royal terrace passes in december, will be able to refund them and I will be putting that towards the new inventory slots, not my ideal solution, (I have much more than those two passes) but acceptable. Feel bad for those who have even more than i do for a longer period of time.

Yeah, tell me about it… I feel quite defeated at the moment. I wish I had made notes on when I purchased my last “set” so that I could make one last attempt but what stings the most is that there seems to be some inconsistency in how these are being handled.

But hey, here is for an expensive waste of bank space :’(

Aragorn.5462:

Crise.9401:

GM Awesomeness.8619:

As for refunds: if you’ve had these account-bound items for ages, we won’t be doing refunds because you’ve already derived substantial benefit. If, however, you bought them more recently, we’re doing refunds on a case-by-case basis.

Curious, any one had any luck with these sort of tickets? So far mine seems to not be very fruitful despite there being clear precedent that gem store items made either fully or partially redundant, or having their functionality changed, by game updates can be subject for refunds.

No such luck everyone seems to be getting the same response, “It’s not possible” which seems silly, but that’s what they want to say.

So what is the point of encouraging people to send tickets in at all then, I wonder… that is just silly.

Unless they want to create unnecessary work for themselves of course.

GM Awesomeness.8619:

As for refunds: if you’ve had these account-bound items for ages, we won’t be doing refunds because you’ve already derived substantial benefit. If, however, you bought them more recently, we’re doing refunds on a case-by-case basis.

Curious, any one had any luck with these sort of tickets? So far mine seems to not be very fruitful despite there being clear precedent that gem store items made either fully or partially redundant, or having their functionality changed, by game updates can be subject for refunds.

I am feeling sad today.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

emendez.3705:

anyone have a link to the build thats really op? just want to see it

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

really?
can you share the build?

i wanna test it out

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Herald_-_Condition_Mallyx

In my opinion this is just one of them, there is also an extra tanky version also.

can you share the tanky one?
i really hate dying.

thanks!

It is in there, under variants as far as I can see…

Mini Crinny.6190:

1 shot trap guard is not fun at all, press 2 buttons and gg

Tell me about it, either the traps need to be retuned or the capture points need to be larger. The only exception being of course Foefire mid, where there is actually enough room to properly play against these things, however, the last time I actually had a game on Foefire was oh so long ago.

Guess I don’t need to play in ranked until they fix this then… I am so full of conquest, not that I was ever that great of a player but still, it gets old fast playing the same thing over and over. For now Stronghold is still fresh for me.

To be frank, feels like a bad retcon of the rite of the great dwarf….

Plus with Asura already there for the tiny niche what would these really offer other than facial hair and significantly less intelligence with more drunken behavior.

I do think that what ArenaNet did with the dwarfs was smart in many ways and they should stick to it. If we are going to be getting a new races there are multiple candidates already and besides race in this game has very little gameplay value attached to it. Though, that being said, I would very much like to see how they would address the narrative of adding another race especially one that is not as clearly established as some of the more likely candidates.

Can someone at least confirm whether this issue will be fixed in the Dec 1st release?

I too experienced OP’s two bugs and then some.

For example, resetting the final fight is very glitchy sometimes your allies always reset for the fight but the actual state for the fight does not. ie. I died just after triggering the last final stun and burn phase of the fight. The boss and allies did reset, including Rytlocks “spawn mechanic”, but the fight/map and the rifts remained in the burn phase (made for an easy kill during the retry though).

Personally I believe the Canach fight could use bit better messaging and user feedback for the last phase, since the tooltip at least is completely useless.

That said these last fights were fun, despite the issues, if anything the mechanics were the best part of it in my opinion, granted towards the end the last fight got bit too busy.

RubberDougie.2750:

We need GMs in this game that can effect change to the world when things get broken / players get stuck.

These GM’s already exist… albeit limited in number. That said they are obviously only going to act in specific circumstances. Read: there is little point in resetting an event with a dev command if 5 minutes later that same event is stuck again (especially if said commands are instance specific), or helping players stuck in terrain when waypointing is normally an option. Sadly it is likely also true that EU has less of such presence than NA on average, unless they double up.

What GM’s will do is fix characters stuck in a limbo state (ie. loading screens or finished PvP matches) or placed in zone’s that are not currently accessible etc. Other than that they mostly seem to deal in monitoring and addressing suspicious player behavior or verifying reports.

If memory serves, dev commands on live are something that are monitored carefully which is probably why they are not normally used as a bandaid for issues. I recall reading somewhere that most arenanet employees need to get specific permission to use dev commands on live at all.

Fade.5904:

Opened the loot chest for getting all the daredevil elite and got recipe for Rune of the Dragon Hunter?? Yet the head scarf has Rune of the Daredevil slotted in it.
Anyone else get same? is it Random?

Loot chest what loot chest, all I got was the scarf?

Riven.4127:

ArenaNet, we’re still waiting for you to tell us how you’re gonna fix the hundreds of thousands of influence lost due to your buggy game. Thank you.

If they have no pre-existing means to track how much influence was spent by which guilds during the time this bug was a thing ArenaNet has very little incentive to spend resources on correctly refunding a currency that is retired (or about to be, depending on your interpretation).

If this is trivial process then yes obviously they should refund the lost influence, but if it actually ties up development or customer support resources they really have no reason to prioritize it over other fixes and feature development when their goal is to basically remove influence out of their system as soon as possible.

Freelancer.4526:

And regarding guilds who spent 300k influence (months and months of work) ?

That is quite subjective… under the old system, which influence is a remnant of, it is the same as 600 gold. This is roughly equivalent to the cost of two sets of ascended light armor (actually it is probably bit less). Which in turn, if you respect the time gating of ascended crafting, is 48 days.

It is probably due to FX reasons (ie. the herald footfall, see below) or how the facet trigger in an area. Do you get the facet of nature underwater or not? That having been said I too would be interested to know why not? a radius on skill effects can be both circular and spherical, latter for underwater obviously.

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

My biggest beef is that if I want my Elite Spec for my Revenant in a reasonable amount of time, I need to do this ridiculous content. Every single other Character I’ve ever played since Alpha was 100% able to do everything I wanted between WvW and sPvP. Even back in Alpha the only time I ever did pve was for focus testing and I was asked to do it. Otherwise I’ve stuck with WvW and sPvP.

This expansion, and gating the Elites behind a ridiculous Hero Point Grind has killed that for me. I don’t trust Anet any more and will discourage any other gamers I know from trying this game until this is fixed.

You do have an option to do WvW for hero points, arguably better or at least equal to the one that we had at vanilla launch when skill points were a thing and you needed them for core skills. https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/earning-hero-points-in-world-vs-world/

bLind.6278:

Honestly, I wouldn’t doubt that ANet will be banning everyone that didn’t purchase from a sponsored site regardless of whether the keys are legit.

Sponsored? The only legit keys come from buy.guildwars2.com and from retailers or distributors that have a contractual agreements with ArenaNet for either digital or physical sale of their products.

This is where all keys come from, by default every one of these keys is legit as you said. Key coming from any other source also originates from one of those sources (because that is the only way to get a key that would work on their system at all).

The key is made fraudulent if one of these primary sources has problems getting their money from a sold copy from the secondary source such as Kinguin resellers in this case. ArenaNet can not see who sold a certain key beyond the point to which their distribution contracts cover them. Most likely they can’t track down the sale of any individual key at all, they only see problems coming back up the distribution chain (meaning that when a distributor contacts them about a key they had to refund or did not get paid for is when they hear of it).

The only exception to this is region specific keys, but that is not a thing for GW2 as far as I know. Since the keys are ultimately region free. Besides these kind of limitations are usually done prior to key activation.

Ashen.2907:

LOLinator.1340:

EDIT: I will say this again, someone BOUGHT this with 50 bucks, from arenanet, then gave it to me for 30. That’s not fraudulent, not in the slightest.

If it was not an Anet authorized retailer then selling the key would have been a violation of the ToS. Remember that accounts are not transferable.

This is also true, but the fact of the matter is that if the person who sold LOLinator his key had bought the game in a way that had no problems with cash flow to the publisher there would likely be no way for anyone to know (since the key is unused, which i suppose technically makes ToS not apply to what happens to the key itself).

But since we are here obviously there has been an issue with ArenaNet getting their cut from the purchase by whoever sold this key on Kinguin, for ANet voiding the key is the only recourse they have. If LOLinator were to contact CS this is exactly what they would tell him and then proceed to instruct him to get a refund from his retailer.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

LOLinator.1340:

Problem with this logic is that someone bought the 50 dollar key already and got a -20$ profit. So just because they ‘think’ I didn’t pay for it won’t cut it. They got their money already, just because it wasn’t from me doesn’t mean the key isn’t legal.

That’s if guy you bought it from got the key legit way.

^ This, if retailer X that got keys from ArenaNet for resale has to refund those keys to some third party (ie. a credit card company if the cards the charges were maid on turn out to be fraudulent) then X will have to contact the publisher, formerly NCSoft now ArenaNet, to void the keys so that they don’t have to pay ArenaNet their cut for keys they had to refund. Of course if the keys were fraudulently purchased from buy.guildwars2.com then you can drop the retailer from the equation (technically it would be replaced by Anet’s choice of payment processor).

This is how (re)sale of goods works people, if in some part of the chain there is a problem then that problem will bubble up the chain and the end result is usually key being voided by the publisher.

People have a funny definition of grind… sure you can grind the masteries up (For Tyria masteries: CoF p1, Sanguine Vault I am looking at you).

There you have a textbook definition of a grind, same repetitive actions over and over again. Normal gameplay, however, is not grindy when it comes to masteries unless you make it so.

I am absolutely not defending the 4+ million EXP for the later tier of masteries (especially the tyrian ones, since they slashed EXP bonuses from dungeons and fractals). However, even then if you can play varied content to gain that experience then it by definition is not a grind. It only becomes one if you choose to repeat the same events and stay on the same maps to do it.

If you want it all as fast as possible then yes, you are in for a mind numbing, brain dead and in cases physically painful grind, but that is your choice to make when you decide to go for optimal farms.

There are also large EXP bonuses coming from raids in a very near future, that will help at least as far as HoT masteries are concerned.

Has the new halloween skin been tried in the Mystic Toilet… ie. the shackle one.

Blackhearted.1264:

So unless you buy directly from anet and pay their blatant rip off price they’ll take away what you payed for without a second thought. LOL anet, way to make yourselves look worse.

That is not it, you can buy from a retailer, as long as ArenaNet gets their cut… it is upto their authorized retailers to decide whether they sell at the MSRP or cut the price taking a loss on an individual copy but counting on increased volume of sales instead.

They are simply taking away keys for which they did not receive their dues (ie. keys bought with fraudulent credit cards or the charges had a chargeback performed on them). In situations like these as far as ArenaNet is concerned you haven’t paid for it because they did not get their compensation. If you paid to some other third party (that does not have an ongoing agreement with ArenaNet for resale of their products) then if you want your money back it is up to you to get the refund from your retailer of choice.

If you bought from a retailer not listed on ArenaNet’s authorized retailer list (such as Kinguin) then you are pretty much on your own. The keys might be fine or they might not.

Basically if the keys are bought from arenanet or another retailer using fraudulent means and then resold one can expect those keys to eventually stop working without notice.

Is there a confirmation on whether the remaining unknown piece is halloween gated. (like an RNG drop from the clocktower, which is my personal nightmare :P).

I am curious though, why the strange inconsistency, I mean had the Itzel lore gating been level 1 or 2 of the mastery track there probably wouldn’t have been any issue at all.

Here is something I saw in fractals today for the first time Dunno if this is common issue or not but figured I’d post here just in case (didn’t have the time to make an in-game report about it then).

Basically the drill in molten weapons facility fractal is no longer a solid object I was able to run through it multiple times.

UI for some types of events (particularly events that do not have their UI inside the brown meta event UI) has ceased to appear in the on screen tracker since HoT, this is quite annoying. The rewards appear normally for a while before being auto dismissed (this is new right).

Xion.5694:

Pesonally I disliked SAB and I like the idea it being out. I dont like the idea of forcing people to play such content (yup achi points/unique skins etc forcing ppl to play it) when it is timegated and so (!) frustraiting.
I would like to see such content for April Fools just like an “little silly thingy”, but without any special revards/achivs.

Pesonally I disliked The Shadow of the Mad King and I like the idea of it being out. I dont like the idea of forcing people to play such content (yup achievement points/unique skins etc forcing people to play it) when it is timegated and so (!) frustraiting.
I would like to see such content for Halloween just as a “little silly thingy”, but without any special rewards/achievements.

What you said can thus be applied to every single one of their temporary or recurring pieces of content. Not that I agree in the least with the notation that achievement points or skins equals to forcing people to play a certain type of content. Skins are just for bling and achievements points are a useless number with some more bling behind them. Neither of them are hard gates of any kind, so being forced to do them is hardly accurate in any way.

Hofulu.7325:

I’m starting my compsci major in college, and looking through all the different languages and stuff, I was randomly curious, what language was GW2 written in? Or is it a collection of different languages for different parts of the game, held together though proprietary stuff?

If you are interested in GW2 behind the scenes I would recommend you watch at least these GDC presentations.

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016640/Guild-Wars-2-Programming-the
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1013691/Designing-Guild-Wars-2-Dynamic
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1021848/Building-a-Better-Centaur-AI (more of general AI)

There are probably few others but I don’t recall them off the top of my head.

Also, this is just my personal opinion, but if you can manage it, start with a slightly more complex language and move towards a language with more automation rather than going in the opposite direction. Namely to learn memory management, don’t become another programmer that calls a language “brittle” because it doesn’t have garbage collection, simply on the basis that you are used to relying on it.

I can’t speak for open world stuff yet, but I was wondering why the demo story instance felt so easy, so I guess it is not just my imagination.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

1) Is two years long enough for the requests for refunds to be justified in your mind?
2) Is there ANY length of time that ANet could hold on to customer money for a service they aren’t providing that you would have issue with?

1) Yes absolutely, having said that I have been of the mindset that people were justified in asking for refunds pretty much ever since the interview that spawned the original topic that has become this dumping ground of SAB posts (I don’t mean to be overly negative but sometimes the merges make posts that make sense outside of this topic lose their meaning when merged).

2) The phrasing here is quite confusing, they are not holding onto any money… you paid for an item, presumably got uses out of it and that’s that. Now the implied value of the item is up for debate (most points of which I entirely agree with), but the use of word service is not justified here.

Most people forwarding ArenaNet’s stance on refunds are likely doing so as a means of forwarding information, I have rarely seen people that genuinely agree with their reasoning. Howevever, as Therodin said the moment they start systematically issuing refunds for ICC can be seen as a silent confirmation that SAB is dead for good… which is why I personally hope they don’t do that even though I believe people are entirely justified in asking for said refunds.

Karl McLain.5604:

Animation update: All dodge animations are in the process of being iterated on. With that being said, in the next Beta weekend each custom dodge ability has had its animation replaced with what is called a ‘stub’, or a placeholder.
These stubs aren’t necessarily what the final animation will look like and may not even resemble the final product remotely (Huge disclaimer: Everything’s subject to change). However, we needed to replace the previously existing animations due to issues that couldn’t be resolved otherwise (i.e. Lag).

We are looking forward to the new functionality, but there’s a few pains that we’re getting through. During the next beta weekend, you’ll find that the Leap combo finisher for Bounding Dodger only works if you land inside a field. This is not intended and we’re already working on the fix for it (it’s in testing now). For now, it’s going to be trickier to get your leap finisher from Black Powder. There’s also a bug in the skill facts that indicate that it delivers a blast finisher, but it in fact a leap and will remain as such.

Other stuff:
As I talked about last update, Channeled Vigor’s now being tested as a 0.75 second cast (down from 2.25 seconds). We’re also toying with the endurance/healing values. The role of this heal is shaping more toward being high spike healing for the thief.

-Karl

As happy as I am to see this post…. 24 days, Karl… 24 days.

QDT rocked, that has to be made into a recurring thing or those lines need to appear in game.