Guild Wars 2

It really depends on what you consider P2W, many people consider Pay2Kill, P2W and in that case I guess you can’t consider GW2 really P2W.

However, for me for example, winning is getting a cool skin, or a cool mini. In that case you could consider the game P2W as for getting those items you have a clear advantage when spending money. In fact for many items the only way to get them is spending money, or grinding gold. You can’t get them in-game as a drop.

Biggest problem with this is that people might not want to keep spending a lot of money on gems so eventually fall to grinding, ending up finding the game boring / getting burned out, and leave.

But who knows, maybe with HoT they go back more to a B2P model instead of a cash-shop model.
We will see.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Can players achieve the exact same thing with no RL cash?

That does not really matter, in many many games that are usually considered P2W, you can get all the stuff in game. It just usually required a lot of time and boring grind.

In all honestly, saying something would not be P2W or bad, just because you can grind for it ingame is a really bad excuse that you could then use to dismiss everything with the current model because you can always grind gold for gems so everything is fine then. That, however is ofcourse not how it works.

Tao.1234:

Devata.6589:

-snip-

Unless, you have problems with playing Gw2 with 10 years old PC, then well, consider an upgrade?

Well the 2500k is just over 4 years old, what would usually be pretty old (while new when GW2 was released btw) however because CPU improvements have been somewhat slow lately it’s still among the fast CPU’s. When you ask advice about an upgrade, in general people will not tell you to now upgrade the processor when you use a 2500k.

A GTX 970 is not even a year old. put in 8 or 16 GB or RAM and you have a system that is still pretty up to date / fast. However, this setup does not give you great performance in GW2, so it’s not just about having an 10 year old PC.

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

Ansau.7326:

Devata.6589:

Vadar.3254:

~

~

The only problem is a newer API wouldn’t bring a big performance improvement, said by some of us here and confirmed by devs.

If people knew how truly dx12 works and what does and what does not, and how little would be the impact in gw2, this thread wouldn’t exist.
But you prefer to read something and assume all the world…

Can you link to the dev confirming that?

Posted multiple times on this thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3ajnso/bad_optimalization_in_gw2/csdnn3n

GW2 bottleneck:

Which brings us to GW2. GW2 does a lot of processing, and much of it is done on the main thread. That is also where its bottleneck tends to be: The main thread. There are conscious efforts in moving things off the main thread and onto other threads (every now and then a patch goes out that does just this), but due to how multi-threading works it’s a non-trivial thing that take a lot of effort to do. In a perfect world, we could say “Hey main thread, give the other threads some stuff to do if you’re too busy”, but sadly this is not that world.

DirectX12:

As for DX9 and 32bit: Moving off of DX9 wouldn’t buy us a whole lot performance wise, as all interaction with DirectX is happening on the render thread, which is generally not the bottleneck. Moving from 32-bit to 64-bit also does not really buy us a lot performance-wise. There are some optimizations the compiler is able to do with 64-bit that it can’t do otherwise, but the actual FPS gain is minimal at best.

64bit (Memory Fragmentation):

And about crashing on Tequatl: Here’s one case where a 64-bit client could actually help. Many of the crashes happening on Tequatl (which are still quite few, mind you) are cause of memory fragmentation. The bigger memory address space of 64-bit apps could help prevent that. This becomes more of a problem the longer you keep your client running.

“Posted multiple times on this thread:”
It would help to stick to their own official forums I guess.

It is an interesting post, when reading it you would think everything is optimized pretty well, but that would raise the question why then it’s still performing pretty bad even with pretty good hardware. Is it really that they are simply running into hardware limitations, somehow I find that hard to believe also when comparing it with other (MMO) games.

I am thinking that you might be able to test this simply by going to a small place (inside) with many people and see how looking at them vs looking the other way does or does not affect your FPS. One would think that you still get all information from the people standing behind you so turning towards them should only change what the GPU has to do, and when that is not the bottleneck it means you should not see real FPS-drops. If you do see FPS drops while GPU is not maxing out, you can wonder if the claim is completely correct.

Well it’s really hard to know anything for sure, but I do find performance bad when looking at the hardware and comparing it to some other games.

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

Dawdler.8521:

Whats more memory going to solve? Probably nothing. Its the games main thread thats bogging it down and its completely CPU bound. The only thing that will help is optimising this. x64 or DX12 will do nothing.

That depends, if the data the processor works with mostly is bigger than 32 bit (let’s say they do a lot with big ints) a 64bit processor (when using a 64bit client) can do this in one step, while a 32bit processor / 32bit client will need to cut the data into two parts so it takes longer. So it could increase performance, but that is not guaranteed.

Basically, the following code would theoretically run faster on a 64bit client then on a 32bit client.
Int64 a = 5;
int64 b = 5;
int64 c = a*b;

But, the following code would not.
Int a = 5;
int b = 5;
int c = a*b;

The number one reason a 64bit client would be better than a 32bit client is due to Memory Fragmentation.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragmentation_:

The most severe problem caused by fragmentation is causing a process or system to fail, due to premature resource exhaustion: if a contiguous allocation is needed and cannot be satisfied, failure occurs. Fragmentation causes this to occur even if there is enough of the resource, but not a continuous amount. For example, if a computer has 4 GiB of memory and 2 GiB are free, but the memory is fragmented in an alternating sequence of 1 MiB used, 1 MiB free, then a request for 1 contiguous GiB of memory cannot be satisfied even though 2 GiB total are free.

That’s why it is advised to RESTART your computer before joining TT, Tequatl, guild missions or other big world events to free up your memory blocks. Otherwise you risk memory crashes. That’s the number one reason for losing your Tequatl loot.

An 64bit client has access to a lot more memory to allocate. Which means Memory Fragmentation is not much of an issue with a 64bit client. If there are no large enough free blocks in the first 4GB of RAM, the system will allocate more RAM to the application. A 32bit client cannot do that because it can only address 4GB

This really depends on the memory usage. Let’s say GW2 will only use about 2GB of RAM this would usually not be a problem. GW2 does seem to use around the 2GB, so it would be strange if this is really be a big issue (not sure how certain you are that is the reason for crashes?). On the other hand you can wonder why GW2 is sticking around 2GB, is nothing more to load into the memory, or there is / could but the game limits itself to those 2GB, in the last case allowing it to use more RAM might also increase performance.

Ansau.7326:

Devata.6589:

Vadar.3254:

The thing I want to know is, why do people want directx 10, 11 or 12?, I am not being sarcastic, I genuinely would like to know, what are your reasons for it. There seems to be a lot of people that talk about directx without really understanding what it is and how it affects a game engine and the development of a game.

Performance increase. While most games are GPU heavy, GW2 is CPU heavy. My 2500k has trouble getting high frame-rate and then the GPU does not matter much (using a 460 or a 970).

Making use of DirectX 12 and better use of the multiple cores (partly what DirectX 12 can help with as it does not only reduces the calls going to the GPU, but can also split them over multiple cores) could mean a big increase in performance. The other way of getting better performance would be OCing the CPU or / and buying a newer / more expensive CPU while that would then only be useful for a few games, because as said, most games are GPU heavy. Meaning it would be a pretty heavy investment compared for what you get for it, and when buying a new GPU you will also have to buy a new motherboard. Not to mention the power-consumption when OCing the CPU.

So for customers, GW2 updating to DirectX 12 (in combination with a few other improvements) would be the best way to get a performance increase.

Now some people say that GW2 is a MMORPG so it’s fine to have lower FPS, but also think about using a VR set. Then you would need 90FPS for best result (on the current generation) or minimum 75FPS. Talking about that, when looking at the system requirements OR gives, it’s a GTX970 and an i5-4590. If I would put a 970 in my system would be close to that, the 2500k just performers a little under the 4590, a small OC on the 2500k, should put the performance on about the requirements for the OR, a system that is considered ‘heavy’, however performance in GW2 would still be pretty bad.

Like somebody said very well on reddit about this. “The problem won’t be that game will look lets say poor in two years, the real problem it will look poor, and it will run just as crappy as it does now, while games looking 4x times better will run at least 2x times better than GW2.”

The only problem is a newer API wouldn’t bring a big performance improvement, said by some of us here and confirmed by devs.

If people knew how truly dx12 works and what does and what does not, and how little would be the impact in gw2, this thread wouldn’t exist.
But you prefer to read something and assume all the world…

Can you link to the dev confirming that?

It’s indeed hard to say how much the improvement will be without knowing what is the true reason why GW2 is performing so bad, however we know for a fact that GW2 is very CPU heavy and we know for a fact that in general DirectX 12 creates the best performance increase with CPU heavy applications (that do use the GPU as well).

That said, it’s not only DirectX that would need to be improved, better multithread would also help a lot. I haven’t checked the usage lately but I did read that then the main core is running at 100% the other cores at about at 50%, let’s say you could move some more of the main core that those other cores so they would go to 75% usage, that could possibly also increase performance by about 30%.

Somebody else was talking about using a 64bit client that might, or might not increase a little.

Not let’s just say they could increase the use of multiple cores a bid more increasing performance with ‘only’ 10%, implementing DirectX12 would ‘only’ increase performance with 15%, and using a 64bit client would only increase performance with about 5%. You might still go from 25fps to 32,5fps. That is still not enough for many, bit still a nice increase.

Another question is, how much of the graphical stuff and other calculations that are done best by a GPU does GW2 do on the CPU instead of on the GPU. One would hope most is done by the GPU but if not, moving all that to the GPU could possibly mean a huge increase in performance. While as long as that would be the case implementing DirectX 12 would not help much. Moving it to the GPU and implementing DirectX 12 at the same time would see an even bigger increase.

So you are right, without knowing everything we don’t know what will, and will not work best. We simply say something based on general known information. It is however hard to believe that there are no good performance improvements possible for GW2, other than simply increasing the hardware / CPU.

Dawdler.8521:

Whats more memory going to solve? Probably nothing. Its the games main thread thats bogging it down and its completely CPU bound. The only thing that will help is optimising this. x64 or DX12 will do nothing.

That depends, if the data the processor works with mostly is bigger than 32 bit (let’s say they do a lot with big ints) a 64bit processor (when using a 64bit client) can do this in one step, while a 32bit processor / 32bit client will need to cut the data into two parts so it takes longer. So it could increase performance, but that is not guaranteed.

Basically, the following code would theoretically run faster on a 64bit client then on a 32bit client.
Int64 a = 5;
int64 b = 5;
int64 c = a*b;

But, the following code would not.
Int a = 5;
int b = 5;
int c = a*b;

Vadar.3254:

The thing I want to know is, why do people want directx 10, 11 or 12?, I am not being sarcastic, I genuinely would like to know, what are your reasons for it. There seems to be a lot of people that talk about directx without really understanding what it is and how it affects a game engine and the development of a game.

Performance increase. While most games are GPU heavy, GW2 is CPU heavy. My 2500k has trouble getting high frame-rate and then the GPU does not matter much (using a 460 or a 970).

Making use of DirectX 12 and better use of the multiple cores (partly what DirectX 12 can help with as it does not only reduces the calls going to the GPU, but can also split them over multiple cores) could mean a big increase in performance. The other way of getting better performance would be OCing the CPU or / and buying a newer / more expensive CPU while that would then only be useful for a few games, because as said, most games are GPU heavy. Meaning it would be a pretty heavy investment compared for what you get for it, and when buying a new GPU you will also have to buy a new motherboard. Not to mention the power-consumption when OCing the CPU.

So for customers, GW2 updating to DirectX 12 (in combination with a few other improvements) would be the best way to get a performance increase.

Now some people say that GW2 is a MMORPG so it’s fine to have lower FPS, but also think about using a VR set. Then you would need 90FPS for best result (on the current generation) or minimum 75FPS. Talking about that, when looking at the system requirements OR gives, it’s a GTX970 and an i5-4590. If I would put a 970 in my system would be close to that, the 2500k just performers a little under the 4590, a small OC on the 2500k, should put the performance on about the requirements for the OR, a system that is considered ‘heavy’, however performance in GW2 would still be pretty bad.

Like somebody said very well on reddit about this. “The problem won’t be that game will look lets say poor in two years, the real problem it will look poor, and it will run just as crappy as it does now, while games looking 4x times better will run at least 2x times better than GW2.”

GamesCom was nice, been at the GW2 stand (and played) 3 times. Waiting time was huge lol, and I did also meet some nice other GW2 players.

See you next year.

Wondering fs they have a CE available at GamesCom, we will find out soon enough. So far I am still holding off buying HoT still hoping for some sort of HoT CE to become available.

Brother Dulfite.5793:

I’m all for tiers based on alliances of guilds instead of meaningless worlds. Please change this anet! Make WvW actually mean something and make all guild members be able to do WvW with their guild whenever they want!

Guild-alliances would then be just as meaningless as worlds, it’s nothing else then a name for a group, you join a group, and then fight for that group. They should make those guilds and guild-alliances more important in those worlds (what they try to do with HoT, so it seems) and fix the problem caused by megaservers. So you choose a world and a guild within that world you like to fight with for that world. (pretty much how it worked before megaservers). This also leave rooms for smaller guilds or even people without guilds or PvX guilds to do their thing.

Also those worlds should get more meaning again. This is also something megaservers sort of destroyed , but imho the way your world and guild (both) performs should be better reflected in other parts of the game. Build a good lore around it and then you have ‘meaning’ to WvW. Changing a name does nothing to that.

It’s simple, Anet making money with gems means they will try to get you to buy gems. ?That results them putting the most fun items (items people like) in the cash-shop, or behind a gold-grind (as you can buy gold with gems). So for the game it’s not good. Playing directly for an item (other than grinding gold) is almost not possible for most items in GW2. While personally I think it’s one of the most fun game-elements of an MMO.

That also means you can’t say you support the game by buying gems, imho you hurt the game by buying gems.

You want to support the game, buy the game. Many people complained about a €50,- price, but for a B2P game (what GW2 has not behaved like the last two years) it’s a normal price and I rather have to pay €50,- for an expansion every year then have items locked in a cash-shop. But maybe with HoT Anet wants to turn back to B2P again, as that justifies the €50,- and also Anet must have seen that the Expansion is already doing more for the game then the LS did.

When we talk about additional information that would be nice to see,

How about ‘Same model as’, ‘The Titanpaw’ is the same as ‘The Godsword’ is the same as ‘The Spiritholme’.

And upgrades including build-time, available supply.

Personally I would only use “Same model as”, but it’s all useful information for many applications.

darthmaim.6017:

You could parse https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/de/na/wvwmain until there is a dedicated API endpoint for that available.

It did cross my mind to get it this way, but I rather wait untill the Api does provide it, it’s just a minor detail (for my usage) anyway.

Reincarnated.1754:

I use API:1/wvw/matches — “wvw_match_id”: “2-2”
The last number I take as being the Rank/Tier the world is in.

I noticed the second number would indeed work as tier, but it’s the rank I was looking for.

—

Nonetheless, thanks for wanting to help find a solution.

Overall I like the idea of adventures but I also see imho a big flaw in the system that Anet promotes as something good.

“Additionally, we’ve been keen on reducing unpredictable randomness in our Adventures.”

Let me start by saying that you indeed need to be careful with randomness. For example, if you have to shoot dummies, the person with the highest score should not simply be the one who was so lucky that they all spawned right in frond of him.

However, that said.. They should have been keen on putting in a lot of unpredictable randomness (within the boundaries to prevent things like my example). That is what makes content more fun and repayable and that is also the only way challenge each others skill-level.

Why are MP much more repayable then single-player games? Because the enemy player (a human) has a higher level of unpredictable randomness then an NPC.

Without unpredictable randomness but pasterns, the adventure becomes a trick in stead of a channeling that has anything to do with skills. Once you know the pattern, you learned the trick.

You did not increase your skills, you got learned that one adventure.

This might be one big mistake as it reduces playability, while the leader-board of course help to increase that a little.

Maybe I overlooked something, but I can’t find a total score or rank of a world.

Only from the current match, is there a way to get to overall score, or rank of a world?

[Suggestion]
It would be nice if match details would also give the account-name of the person who claimed an objective. (if that information is available).

From a guild-perspective that is a nice to know information because, for the world an objective got claimed by guild x, but for guild x it got claimed by member y.

Lawton Campbell.8517:

Am working on /v2/wvw/objectives right now, though due to the release process the earliest it can be deployed is the patch after next.

That is great to hear :-)

Thanks.

Can you tell what the structure will be like? Same as V1 but with correct names? Then I can already make the code correct.

lordkrall.7241:

Devata.6589:

Good MMO’s don’t really need to have an expiration-date, so 3 years is nothing.. but that only holds true in you indeed keep updating this sort of things. So the game only really ages if you let it age.

One of the reasons that WoW is so successful is because of this (they do use DX11 and will likely implement DirectX 12).

Are you honestly thinking that the reason WoW is successful is due to them using DX11?

You are aware that it was successful before they made that upgrade as well, right?

Not because they implemented DirectX 11 but because they “keep updating these sort of things.”, being it graphics in general, DirectX, 3D support and so on, and so on.

Yes WoW was successful when they implemented it, as they were successful pretty much from the start, but if they did not do what they did (including, updating these sorts of things) they might not have still been as successful as they are.

Atoss.1056:

WvW could be more guild based, instead random server population based. It would encourage pugs to join proper wvw guilds as well.

Ande destroy WvW for PvX guilds? That would only make it worse.

The megaserver already mainly hurts PvX guilds, WvW only guilds simply only recruit in WvW maps so they do not have this problem.

No, I think the ‘worlds’ fighting each other is better, but in those worlds, guilds should get a bigger role and the problem megaservers created should be solved.

muslumgurseks.4951:

Imho the decision to do or not is based on the money they will be having in return. Let’s say they spend like 100$ to make it happen, it should atleast make them 100$ extra moneh. Also it’s been almost 3 years since the game release would they bother doing something like that for a game that’s already aging? I dont think so. Batman was just an example to show you how hard it actually is and what happens when you do it wrong. I’m one of the many people in the forum who have been asking for the dx11 support since the gw2 beta. Im just saying demand was always been there it’s never met and will probably never be met for the gw2 atleast.

Good MMO’s don’t really need to have an expiration-date, so 3 years is nothing.. but that only holds true in you indeed keep updating this sort of things. So the game only really ages if you let it age.

One of the reasons that WoW is so successful is because of this (they do use DX11 and will likely implement DirectX 12).

Any news about the Api going to return the correct names? I was planning on mapping the names myself when I found this thread, so it’s nice not having to do that but it would still be better if the Api simply returns the correct information so that if names or ID’s change, or when new maps / locations / objectives get added everything keeps working instead of ending up with broken code because you mapped those names hard-coded.

I was just thinking about making a topic about this topic..

Indeed, there has to be a solution for this problem, and not a temporary one for the release of HoT but a structural solution for the future.

Just giving out free transfers every-time is not a great idea because it is a problem for WvW itself but still we need a way to get members to easily join a server that is used as base (WvW) server by a guild.

One small thing that would help, is having a server-chat that lets you chat in a map, but over multiple instances, only visible by people on the same server. This would at least help with recruiting in PvE for members who also like to do WvW.
But while this would help a little, fact is that at this moment many guilds already have people from many servers and with the mega-server in place you will always get more members from other server then without the mega-servers. So this could be nice in combination with some other things, but does not solve the problem by itself.

rapthorne.7345:

Will this event be getting streamed at all?

They are at the Twitch booth, does that answer your question?

I would personally have loved to see them having their own booth again like in 2012.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I positively love gamescom, and I’m super excited to be going to this amazing show. If you’re going, too, post here so I can watch for you at the show!

How are you going to do that? You know, irl we don’t have a name-tag above our head.

Also plans for selling any goodies.. you know.. like a Ultra Super Special Edition of HoT? Only sold at these meetings.

Anyway, I see you there.. as you likely do have a name-tag.

That is great to hear. So maybe we might get that information after-all..?

The fact that the position is not exact is not a huge problem if you just want to give an indication of where players / guild-members are.

Thanks for all the information. It’s really nice to know what we might see, what we might not see and be able to so directly tell what we would like to see and hear why some things might not (or different) be implemented anyway.

“Potentially significantly increased load on Map Servers. Constantly getting this information isn’t free. " For the ‘API-server’ yes as it would now start to make sense to have a request every second or so, for the map server not really. Your Api server would basically act as one client and request locations of players on a map just as your client does now. I am not sure how fast this gets updated but lets say 1/30 of a sec. So the load on the Map server would be about the same as that from one player.

To come back to your snap-shot.. it would ‘snap-shot’ / hold that information until it gets updated 1/30 sec later.

People using the Api would not result in additional requests to the Map server and so even a DDOS attack would only kill the API server, not the map-server.

Knowing that the new WvW maps have the ability to show all players that walk by a tower it means it should not really be a problem to get the position of many / all other players, and relay that information to many clients. You would now do the same but only relay that to one other server, the API server and the API server would then relay that information back to anybody who asks him.

Maybe the problem is that I would not be requesting just locations of people on a map but locations from specific players. However if the API would be like a client that is on all maps / instances I would think it then does have the information it needs (an ID and a location).

Surely they are difficulties if Lawton says so, but I don’t think it would be the additional load for the map-servers.

Lawton Campbell.8517:

Devata.6589:

Lawton Campbell.8517:

smiley.1438:

No, the API can’t do that yet.

Just to note — real-time fine-grain access to character position is never going to be something we can provide. The closest we’d be able to get is which map they’re currently on, not where on the map they currently are.

May I ask why this is not possible? Every character has an XYZ coordinate that is also being used to show to party-members (or WvW people).

I could imagine the API only reads information form the database and the character positions are obviously not in the database, however one would think you could ask the server that information (just as the cliënt does get that information).

The map instance servers are the only ones that have real-time character position data and aren’t designed to have arbitrary bits and bobbles connecting to them. Strictly speaking, it isn’t impossible, but I don’t want to couple them to the API infrastructure.

Thanks for the information. This does then also explains why you can’t see (group) player locations on other maps , while it does not explain why you can see it from players in the same map but another instance?.

Clearly it would be possible as the client is requesting the same information (at least from your map) but I guess those servers then don’t really have an general Api where the client can request such information but it’s more tangled together.

I would suggest at least keeping this possibility in the back of you mind so that if some work gets done on the ‘instance code’ that might make this a more viable option we might get that possibility at some point.

Purely from an Api user perspective the ability would be great but I understand that from a development perspective it would not be high on the list.

Again thanks for the information.

Stars.2179:

My guild bank is a guild of four accounts, all under me. So for all intent and purposes it has 4 separate people in it. I should have a way of getting a guild hall as well. Please don’t make guild mission a required thing. I should be able to get the guild hall and all its upgrade by logging all the chars on each one. Please.

Seems to me what you are after is personal housing, not a guild-hall.

Daddicus.6128:

Devata.6589:

I disagree. The guild-missions are fun but influence just slowly drops in based on what guild-members do. There is no challenge or fun game-elements involved in getting them. It does not feel like an achievement you do as guild.

Lets say you would have a guild-dungeon and you completed it and got a special reward based in your effort, that would give the guild a challenge, goals and rewards.

Now this is a good argument, although my statement still stands.

I could see making guild-based dungeon-like content that requires more people. Using a dungeon as an example, maybe a 10-person dungeon. I do think that dungeons being designed for exactly 5 people makes for a more interesting experience. So, making a 10-person or 15-person dungeon-like activity would make sense.

But, to forcibly limit the creation of the guild or guild hall to something like that is a bad idea.

The ‘creation’ is done by unlocking the dungeon. But additions to it could and should imho be done in a way like this. I think the ‘earn a portal to a WvW map by claiming and keeping a keep in that map is the perfect example.

The content fits the reward.. Sure people are ‘forced’ to do WvW if they want that portal.. but heyy.. it’s a WvW portal. Guilds have a reason to maintain a keep or tower or camp (make they all work but some give a better skin to the portal). That is imho way more interesting game-play for guilds then.. ahh just do some stuff, earn some influence / currency and buy the portal.

Depending on the release date they might also be able to sell CE’s at events they visit. For example GamesCom 2015 is just around the corner, sadly it would be too late for E3 but their might be a few other events Anet visits before the release. At least that would prevent them from having to ship it to retailers. And I still think their own online merchandise would be a perfect place to sell a CE.

Lawton Campbell.8517:

smiley.1438:

No, the API can’t do that yet.

Just to note — real-time fine-grain access to character position is never going to be something we can provide. The closest we’d be able to get is which map they’re currently on, not where on the map they currently are.

May I ask why this is not possible? Every character has an XYZ coordinate that is also being used to show to party-members (or WvW people).

I could imagine the API only reads information form the database and the character positions are obviously not in the database, however one would think you could ask the server that information (just as the cliënt does get that information).

It would be great if we could get that information, from my viewpoint not only from your own character, but from all guild-members, so you could show the location of all the members.

Diva.4706:

I believe that we are seeing the last generation that actually want physical boxes for media content. Today kids are growing up with digital content available at the click of a button; music, movies, games, books. They are all just a click away. Having to actually go to a store and buy a box with the content on physical media is a very out-dated, and very wasteful delivery system. I still find myself sometimes clinging to physical media. But at the end of the day it just takes up space.

The industry has been saying that for years now, however meanwhile more and more games are coming with collector’s edition and other merchandise. It’s supposed to take place as it’s used as a form of decoration. Maybe people don’t want to go to shops, but there is no need for that, also not with physical copies.

Not to mention that if you buy a game only digital you are always depended on the company holding up their servers. Not that that is reason when talking about MMO’s.

I am still hoping for a CE and so waiting with buying HoT for now.

Don’t forget about the female walk animation. That has been gone for.. what? almost 2 years now? It’s about time to bring that back as well.

Reize.2176:

Pre-purchase box is totally different from the Retail box though. So it really depends on what you want.

I’m holding off on pre-purchasing because I’d rather have the physical retail box, and also because im a spiteful little kitten because the suits at NCSoft are the worst human beings ever.

I don’t think in this case there will be a big differece between pre-purchase and retail. Likely both a case with a key in it.

I am still hoping for something more interesting like a CE.

Lawton Campbell.8517:

darthmaim.6017:

MentalFS.2589:

Devata.6589:

What does this ‘in-game rank permission that grants API access’ mean?

I think it’s a permission in the rank system (like guild vault access) that grants the member access to guild information with the API, not the other way around and definately nothing for public access. At least that’s how I understood it.

That also what I am thinking.

Yeah, that’s what I meant.

Devata.6589:

zeeZ.5713:

But they can… by giving their guild their API keys

It would make sense that members might want to show their gear but not what is on the bank.

I’ve been thinking about this; I think I’m going to add a “builds” permissions that grants access to traits/skillbar/equipment — such that you can get the “equipment” with either the “builds” or “inventory” permissions.

It might be kind of gross like that, but having it enabled by “inventory” allows the “dude-wheres-my-mini.com” use-case for solving “which character has my ascended gs?”

MatHack.4316:

I do feel something for the suggestion made above about a guild member giving the whole guild permission to see (a limited) amount of data from their account.

For the initial release of the guild endpoint, the roster will only have the account name. My idea was to leverage the API key permission bits to allow guild members to select exactly what they want to share (by requiring them to give out an API key).

It might be possible to move that in-game but that’s not my department, so it’ll take quite a bit more time and effort.

AysonCurrax.3254:

Would it be possible to add what crafting professions a particular character has, including the level?

Yes. Also which ones are currently active.

Thanks for considering it.

It would be a huge improvement from a guild-perspective as it would allow them to make detailed guild-rosters of all members (and possible old members) showing how they are geared, maybe in the future even the achievements.
If we would be able to get the character coordinates you could even make a real-time map showing where all members are.
Well it would give a lot of options while still allowing the guild-members their privacy they deserve / want.

At the current approach it would be everything or nothing. I understand that at the current stage requesting API-keys is the most logical option, but if that could eventually move to a member giving the guild permissions you could really have an automated system without having to ask new members for an API-key.

Again thanks for considering it and keep up the good work.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

The problem with “objectivity” and logic is that it only works if you have all the information. Even if you knew every single thing that was in the box, it doesn’t tell you what else you’ll get for owning that box after the fact.

Vayne, we talked about this so many times. Yes without having all the numbers you do not know for sure what is going on or make predictions with 100% certainty.

However, as I told you in the discussions we have had, you can still work with the information you have, you can make use of common sense and get an idea about something with that information. Name it an educated guess.

Nearly all prediction, decisions and gathering of information is done in this way. If you look at the weather they do not have all the information, they even have a real small piece of all the information (that is why they are not extremely accurate) but do still predict the weather based on that.

It is how the world works. It might be useful in a discussion to come with this statement in a way to try and dismiss what a person is saying, but it’s not a really good argument.

This just doesnt work let me illustrate why.

So right now we dont know how much content HoT is going to have but we do know what Anet did so far.

So Person A might look at the LS and say ohh they were tiny 2 hr updates at most. Anet has a history of releasing small updates so based on what I know I have no doubt HoT will be tiny. $60 for a tiny update not worthed.

Person B looks at the LS and goes. wow an update every 2 weeks while working on an example. Thats a ton more then competing MMOs do. They generally release 3-5 updates while we wait, Anet released 40-50… This Expansion is going to be X10 larger then competing expansions.

Who’s right? probably neither but both are valid interpretations of the data thats available.

Vayne is right without the facts all we’re doing is guessing. There just isnt enough information not even for an educated guess.

Sure, but you can still look at what the market does.

zeeZ.5713:

But they can… by giving their guild their API keys

Yeah I did think about that, but then you have to get all members to give the key and then you immediately can see all information, including what is on their bank and so on.

It would make sense that members might want to show their gear but not what is on the bank.

Vayne.8563:

The problem with “objectivity” and logic is that it only works if you have all the information. Even if you knew every single thing that was in the box, it doesn’t tell you what else you’ll get for owning that box after the fact.

Vayne, we talked about this so many times. Yes without having all the numbers you do not know for sure what is going on or make predictions with 100% certainty.

However, as I told you in the discussions we have had, you can still work with the information you have, you can make use of common sense and get an idea about something with that information. Name it an educated guess.

Nearly all prediction, decisions and gathering of information is done in this way. If you look at the weather they do not have all the information, they even have a real small piece of all the information (that is why they are not extremely accurate) but do still predict the weather based on that.

It is how the world works. It might be useful in a discussion to come with this statement in a way to try and dismiss what a person is saying, but it’s not a really good argument.

Yes phys does not have all information, and he might be wrong (or might be right). You can say something about his information being wrong, or leaving information out or the logic he uses to get to a conclusion based on that information.. But don’t come with “It’s not valid because you do not have all the facts”.

And let me then add what I have to say about the subject. I hoped the price would be between $40 and $60, and not between 0,- and $40-. Because as you know I am very in favor for the B2P model, based on expansion and very much against the cash-shop model GW2 has been using.
If the price would be between 0,- and $40,- it would be a clear sign they would be sticking with the cash-shop model as that price is more fitting for games using that model. While the price-range of $40,- to $60,- (for a standard edition) would be more fitting for a B2P model that has only a small use of the cash-shop. (you always seem to refer to WoW when you say.. look all mmo’s are having a cash-shop these days.. while there is obvious a big difference between them. For a B2P game I expect a cash-shop as that of WoW max).

Back to the question if it’s worth the price. (separated from the question if I buy it, because I will and if they decide to come with a CE I will buy that). Based on what I said I think that if they start behaving more as a B2P game then yes, in fact I think that if they had behaved more as a B2P game, and they released the first expansion 1 / 1,5 after release for $50,- having had almost no focus on the cash-shop meanwhile there would not be this big outcry. By now we would then likely already have had 2 expansion (of $50,- a piece) and closing in on out 3th.

If the game will keep the focus on the cash-shop then I don’t think it should cost $50,- but should be around $35,- $40,- imho.

Oke, so then the member with that permission uses his personal key to authenticate and then has access to all the guild-information, that makes much more sense.

It would however still be nice if guild-members could also give permissions to the guild, to get some details from their personal account.

darthmaim.6017:

To get character info you will probably always need the API key of the owner-account, you will only be able to get guild informations with the ingame permission.

If this is the case then see what I talked about as a suggestion, as that would allow for much more freedom / options (especially for guild-sites) while still allowing for the same (or more) security and privacy-options.

darthmaim.6017:

Devata.6589:

maybe a stupid question, but would this then also mean we are able to get an image of the character, maybe even an 3D object?

Lawton Campbell.8517:

Rest assured, this is something I really, really want too. There’s a lot of moving parts that need to be ironed out before it’s feasible though, so we’ll probably be sticking to low-hanging fruit for awhile yet :<

—

Devata.6589:

In addition I was wondering if Authentication would also get an update to allow more options for guild. So we could also use this character information for guild-members. At this moment authentication is done based on your own account-details, but that would mean (correct me if I am wrong) that I would not be able to get this information from anybody else then myself. So I cannot make a guild-roster (I know we are getting a function to get the guild-roster) where (for example) we then show the characters or the guild-members and their gear.

Lawton Campbell.8517:

With respect to privacy, the conclusion was that the best solution is to have an in-game rank permission that grants API access. Since that’s going to take some time to implement, the initial release will be restricted to allow access only to guild leaders.

I missed that first reply. Thanks!

The second one I did read (it was an answer to another question of me) but does not fully answer the question.

What does this ‘in-game rank permission that grants API access’ mean?, as I see it, it would only allow a guild to toggle on or off the ability for anybody to get access to guild-information (maybe detailing what information). Something you might not want. As guild I might not want everybody being able to get the guild-roster or MotD, but I might want to have the ability myself to put it on the guild-site. In addition it would not allow to get detailed character information from characters as that still requires authentication with the account from the owner of that character.
(Heck you could even allow for two rights, one for public use, and one for personal / guild-site use)

Or maybe the ‘in-game rank permission that grants API access’ is more in line with what I talk about here. But that is not completely clear to me.

Seth Moonshadow.2710:

Not sure if this helps answer your question or not. But here is a picture from the Guild Wars 2 POI Show talking about buildings and PvP. This is placing a LOS blocking building in a PvP Arena.

I did see this video, but it does not really answer my question. It’s placing an object onto a flat surface.

I did not see them placing two of those blocks on top of each other, or one sticking over the edge of the arena, or on a not flat surface, or placing two object partly inside each other.

By default you would expect this to be the case (it would require additional coding to prevent that) but I would not be surprised if they limit it in some ways to prevent people from making a mess of their guild-hall with a big tower of blocks in the middle or whatever. On the other hand, being able to build a tower like that would be awesome (also allow for good looking towers) and it’s a closed of area so if people want to make a mess of their guild-hall that is up to them. Personally I would only not allow object to completely float in the air (easier said than done, because what if you place two blocks on top of each other and then removed the bottom one, you should then not allow that).

The question is, what freedom does Anet give us here.

Mo Mo.1947:

I’d say only a dev or someone in the NDA closed beta would know that. No general players have any way of knowing.

I am fine with a Dev answering the questions

I am just getting into the API (V1 didn’t really have the guild-related options I needed / wanted) so maybe a stupid question, but would this then also mean we are able to get an image of the character, maybe even an 3D object?
—
In addition I was wondering if Authentication would also get an update to allow more options for guild. So we could also use this character information for guild-members. At this moment authentication is done based on your own account-details, but that would mean (correct me if I am wrong) that I would not be able to get this information from anybody else then myself. So I cannot make a guild-roster (I know we are getting a function to get the guild-roster) where (for example) we then show the characters or the guild-members and their gear.

Guild-members could have the ability to (in advanced security options) allow guilds / guild-leaders to see some information like the armor their character have on. (some information could be on by default and some could be off by default). Than have the ability to put a password on a guild and allow for authentication using that password (So you don’t authenticate as a player but as a guild). The guild could also have its own authentication roles (what information should be available).

In that way you have a secure way to show all the type of information guilds might want to show on their site. Guild-roster, including specs of the guild-members (if members do not disable that ability), message of the day, items in the guild-bank, completed guild-missions, combined gold of all members (if members would share their amount of gold with the guild). Everything is possible, but everything can also been closed off for privacy / security reasons.

One of the main features would be the guild-roster with detailed character information of all guild-members. That is why I mention it in this thread.

I found some screen-shots I made of the hound and the owner in the destroyed LA, so until a week ago they where still standing there!

Sadly it’s without name-tag so I don’t know if the NPC (owner) had a special name or not.

[img]http://www.pikensquare.com/Pic1.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.pikensquare.com/Pic2.jpg[/img]
The second picture shows the exact location on the map (in the destroyed LA)

I also made an overlay of the old and the new LA to see it’s location on the new LA, but it’s not at that spot.
[img]http://www.pikensquare.com/Pic3.png[/img]

I hope this might help in the search for them.

Zero Day.2594:

And they barely had a gem/cash shop back then…

This is indeed the main reason imho why then $50,- was a justifiable price (even without all the stuff that came with it). That was a B2P game, GW2 has not been behaving as a B2P game, but maybe Anet can clear the air by letting us know they want to move towards that again, way less cash-shop but more expansions, and then the price of $50,- is completely justifiable .

Oke, to bad. I was also wondering if this API would be the right tool for itt (while it can be used for it) however it’s all we have at the moment. I see however that there is also talk about using another protocol.

Thanks for the link, I guess I should be checking out github more instead of the forum.

Nobody any idea bout this?

The new LA would be great for it and I would find it strange if they didn’t at least think about the possibility when designing the new map, it only misses a high tower in the middle to jump of.

Main problem (especially with the lighthouse) would be that it allows you to fly outside of the map, you could make an invisible wall there, but invisible walls are the worse, ugly (what is really impressive for something that is invisible) and immersive breaking. Maybe they could do something like the winds blowing you inside, but that would only make sense near the tower (because of the hills).

Maybe if at some point we get seamless maps it will be implemented. But who know, LA is more of a HoT map then a Vanilla map so it would not be completely unthinkable.