Showing Posts For Doghouse.1562:

"No Refuge" not completing

in Living World

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Ah, OK. Thanks for that – it’s nice to hear that you CAN dig your way back out of it. Hopefully we’ll work something out next time we’re all on together.

"No Refuge" not completing

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Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Has anyone else hit the following, and if so, were you able to continue to a successful conclusion?

I did “No Refuge” last night with a regular group of three friends. We’d completed “Meeting the Asura” together immediately prior to that, (and checked before entering the story that we were all up to speed and at the same point in the LS – we’ve tripped up before over someone not ticking a non-instanced step along the way, so are careful to make sure we’re in synch before we go into instanced stuff).

It was my instance, and at the end I was quite quick in accepting the reward and exiting, to the extent that one of the other players complained that he’d seen the “progress your story” option but not had time to select it before it got hidden behind another message (OK, guilty as charged). On leaving the instance, though, he was able to progress. The other two players weren’t as lucky; if any option to progress was shown, they didn’t see it, and on leaving the instance (I assume being booted out because “the instance owner” had left, although I can’t swear to that), didn’t get one either. Both of them were stuck with a story status showing as “Return to the Silverwastes” – despite their having already left the instance. I can’t remember what options their journals apparently showed them, but multiple attempts to sort things out by hitting Quit/Replay/etc made no difference.

(We’ve no problem in replaying the instance to get completion for them – but last night, at least, we weren’t even able to get into a state in which that was possible. Feedback from anyone who’s already “been there before” would be much appreciated, therefore!)

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

The Source of Orr - really annoying end...

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

OK, this is trivial by most standards, but it’s really ANNOYING. I’ve done this story three times since the story lines were reorganised, and the now-pointless running about at the end, courtesy of the reorganisation, is incredibly badly thought out and REALLY frustrating.

In summary:
1) Having fought through to the point at which Trahearne successfully performs the cleansing ritual, you’re told to go find him in Fort Trinity. So –
2) you click to exit the first part of the story and you’re dropped out where you entered – i.e. at the airship.
3) Where’s the next part of the story? Right across the other side of the Fort. So you run over (or WP over at a cost), and enter the final part of the story. Which
4) sends you running back to Trahearne. And where is he? Right back where you just came from – at the airship. You chat to him, the story ends, and you get “Temple of the Forgotten God”. "Speak to Marshall Trahearne at Fort Trinity. So – you click to leave the story, and get dropped out – back outside the Fort. And where’s the next part of your story, if you want to carry straight on with it? You guessed: Near the airship.
5) Off you go again…

In other words, you get to run all the way across Fort Trinity three times simply to get to roughly where you’ve already been from the start. Someone’s obviously been reading their Lewis Carol, because that bit’s a real Red Queen’s Race, running as fast as you can to stay in the same place.

Sorry – this really needs a couple of minutes of thought and some repositioning of locations to tidy it up. Right now it’s just ugly (and really annoying; but then, I think I may have mentioned that already).

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

LFG bug

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I wonder whether ANet have realised that they could get sued over this one?

One word: Epilepsy.

I haven’t, as yet and to my knowledge, suffered from seizures myself – but I know from repeated experience that I can “feel” very uncomfortable from visual stimulation that causes seizures in others. And guess what? The flashing LFG list is making me feel precisely like that. So – no offense ANet; I know you have to prioritise your bug resolution, and my own reactions could be entirely spurious – but this one is potentially very serious, and I suggest you hike it way up the list.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

How to complete the Asura meeting success ?

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Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I did try again after I’d calmed and after 30 minutes of failures and waiting, the RNG luck gods blessed me with knocking out Vorpp’s shielding a second time. I moved behind Vorpp to knock him out… and no action ever appeared, pressing F did nothing, no option to knock him out!

I had that twice. Kept going and finally succeeded – with every bit of my armour, but for one piece, broken.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

How to complete the Asura meeting success ?

in Living World

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I completed it on the first run through with ease. Took me about 20 minutes.

Then I can only presume that you lucked out somewhat on the final section. I found that getting the timing right was an absolute swine, even once I’d worked out precisely what I had to do, and what the (admittedly fairly decent) graphics clues that the dev’s have programmed in are and mean. And twice, even when I got everything right, removed Voorp’s shield and got myself into exactly the right position unobserved, I didn’t get an option to knock him out. Then, to add insult to injury, when I finally completed it, all my armour was broken from the constant deaths and restarts. (Why mine, for pity’s sake!?!? That was Caithe’s memory!)

Could have been fun. Really, really wasn’t. I could doubtless do it a lot faster on a rerun, now that I understand it, but even so.

(Oh, plus this story had one of my least-favourite GW2 mechanisms in it – drop the player into a fight with a totally unfamiliar skill set and no prior opportunity to work out what the different skills do. Thanks, Anet – there’s nothing I like more than desperately trying to stay alive whilst effectively mashing random buttons and trying to work out what each one of them does. Please – if you’re going to make me fight with a new character, remember that that character would know what they’re capable of. Making me fight as Caithe, with absolutely no idea of what Caithe can do, simply shatters any feeling that you may have been trying to build that I’m reliving her memories. At least give me a chance to see the skills before the fight starts. Anything less is, frankly – and I’m being deliberately polite here, because I doubt that the wording I’d like to use would survive the forum censorship mechanism – simply being a pain in the posterior and making things tougher for me just because you can. A classic case of breaking Wheaton’s Law, in fact.)

Edit: Having now done this a couple of times more, I have to concede that, if you have any familiarity with “stealth” games, it’s probably near-trivial. The problem is that, if you haven’t (as I hadn’t), the learning curve is pretty steep, quite painful and (in my case at least) very frustrating. Hey ho.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Hidden Arcana - fps on Light attunement

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Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Did anyone else hit this, and if so, did you find a solution? (Asking on behalf of a friend, so I don’t have precise hardware/settings details… I know he’s running on oldish kit, but fps isn’t normally a problem for him.)

A couple of days ago, we were jointly attempting the “Echoes of the Past” story, “Hidden Arcana” (which I’ve done multiple times on other characters). Things were initially OK, but after defeating the Distorted Facet of Strength my friend hit a problem that stopped us getting to Distorted facet of Light, and eventually made us give up in despair.

In summary, every time he got the attunement required to protect him from the damage fields (transparent globe animation), his frame rate plummeted to the point where character control became impossible. We were able to get past the first, large field, because it’s basically just a straight run, but navigating over the narrow spans of crystal bridge from the second attunement point to the Facet, with the protection buff timer running down and movement direction important, defeated him. After about the 6th successive fall and restart, we were forced to give up.

Any help appreciated.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Salvage highlighting

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

OK – I’ve failed. Could some kind soul point out just WHERE I turn this off? I’ve attempted to check through the various Options tabs line by line, and I can’t find it for looking. Many thanks in advance!

Also this. I can’t seem to find it either. I’m hoping I can keep the salvage highlighting but lose the “Hey! You got a Clump of Tar!” highlighting.

Ok when you open your inventory there’s a little cog in the top right hand corner. Click on that and the third (I believe) option down is “Hide New Item Highlighting” (or something to that effect). Selecting this will disable the new item highlighting thingy.

Thanks for that. Basically, what it comes down to is that GW2 scatters its options over three dialogues (at least – I’m not discounting the possibility that there are others I’ve forgotten or never spotted!), with no real clues that that’s the case. Not a real problem if you realise how things are, but frankly I cut my gaming teeth on a diet of many, many programs that were almost without exception rather better organised than that, and knew to keep options neatly together, where they’d be found – and two full years of playing too much GW2 hadn’t changed that prejudice. This was clearly a display option, so I was looking for it in the “display” choices – branching out to search the rest of the “Options” dialogue when I didn’t find it, and getting really confused when what I wanted wasn’t there. The possibility of other “options” dialogues didn’t even occur to me.

The inventory “options” dialogue is also a non-obvious place to find something like that – although it’s highly probably I’d have spotted it there eventually – because it’s now a mixture of inventory actions that people are likely to use regularly, such as depositing materials, and “one-off” options of this sort, that most people are likely to set once and then leave alone. And the latter, wherever they’re put, ought to be flagged as such by being controlled with check-boxes – not simple, selectable menu text.

In all honesty, it’s a bit of a design mess.

(For the sake of giving it a fair and unbiased trial, I’m going to leave the “new items” glow on for now, and see how I get on. Frankly, I expect to turn it off, because (a) I don’t normally micro-manage my inventory on a minute-by-minute basis, so I’m expecting that I’ll regularly be opening it to find two-thirds of my screen glowing, and (b) the glow – on my screen, at least – makes it rather hard to see what the individual, new items actually are – which is likely to be a bigger nuisance than not knowing what’s new and what’s not, and almost certainly wholly defeats its usefulness. But, like I said, I’ll give it a trial.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Salvage highlighting

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Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

OK – I’ve failed. Could some kind soul point out just WHERE I turn this off? I’ve attempted to check through the various Options tabs line by line, and I can’t find it for looking. Many thanks in advance!

Carpace Gloves

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Dumb question (and probably not the ideal thread to ask it in either), but – where are those tracks? I’ve hunted through my achievements list in hopes of understanding what I’d need to do, but without finding them.

sPvP window -> reward tracks tab.

Ah, yes. Thanks very much! You might gather from the question that sPvP hasn’t been part of my play up to now.

Too many sell orders

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I sell numerous items every night at the end of my play session and I haven’t run into this because I don’t try to sell all of them in 20 SECONDS!!! It’s probably because I don’t sell to high bidder and I take a moment to set the price that will be more profitable than highest seller but will likely sell in 12-15 hours.

Bully for you.

How you choose to sell your stuff is up to you; how I sell mine, is up to me. I’ll give thought to the higher-value stuff, but I’m quite happy to unload most of my low-value stuff to the highest bidder – because frankly, doing anything else is work rather than pleasure, and my active game play time is too valuable to me to waste agonising over squeezing a few more coppers out of dross (and in the time I’d spend doing that, if profit were my objective, I could earn far more in other ways anyway**). And, yes, I can rattle through the dross at one heck of a speed, deciding whether to vendor, salvage or BLTC it. So – if you want to play your way, I don’t have a problem with it; but please understand that your way is not the only one, and in this case, those of us who want to adopt a different strategy are impacted by an overly-aggressive bot limiter.

(**I have a friend who favours your approach. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, if that’s how you enjoy spending your time; but from a purely anecdotal point of view – I’m rather better at making gold than he is.)

None of which addresses the other scenario I described, by the way… I will, today, try to post on the BLTC, at competitive offer prices, a couple of thousand of each of various gatherables, acquired through salvage (salvage is something I can do with my brain turned off, whilst, say, watching something on the other screen) {1}. And I will hit the spurious “too many sell orders” error. The game makes me sell in batches, but already knows I’m repeating a previous sale, because it restores my sell options; there’s simply no reason to limit my sell speed.

{1} Edit: (Well – I thought I would; today, the market in the things I’m interested in has gone crazy, and i have far fewer than expected. That sort of thing happens. The point stands.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Carpace Gloves

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I’m saying that because we have 2 PvP reward tracks now:

  • “Maguuma Wastes” PvP track, whose drops are Dry Top specific, and which should probably be called “Dry Top” – OR incorporate Silverwastes rewards
  • “Silverwastes” PvP track, whose drops are Silverwastes specific, but the end chest is a glove box and NOT a shoulder box (according to the description anyway) so I think we won’t have the choice of other armor skins in later chapters either

Dumb question (and probably not the ideal thread to ask it in either), but – where are those tracks? I’ve hunted through my achievements list in hopes of understanding what I’d need to do, but without finding them.

Middle of Maze Progress Blocked

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Doghouse.1562

Same, standing at wrench the second time, does not open.
Calixtus, you don’t understand the problem. It’s not about the red circle.

Sorry, but (at least as I just played the story) Calixtus is correct; the wrenches are misleading you. Rox only opens vines at each wrench symbol once. Having opened the two, and rescued all four of your companions, the (obvious) route to the centre becomes open. Standing on a wrench symbol you’ve already used, waiting for Rox to open more vines (as I also briefly did at one point) doesn’t achieve anything; you’re in the wrong place, pure and simple. All you actually have to do is follow the corridors round.

If there’s a bug here, it’s that the wrench symbols remain in place, and you can still get the interaction messages from them. They should disappear once the vines have been cleared.

Too many sell orders

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Yes, came here to make a similar post. It’s not that I don’t understand why the check is in place, just that the speed limitation is set too aggressively low.

1) Since the BLTC UI was changed, I find I can make my decisions about what to vendor, salvage or put on the TP quite a bit faster than before. Result? If I have a reasonably full inventory, there’s a very good chance I’ll trip over this “error” well before I’m anywhere near finishing emptying my bags. From that point onwards, it’s just sheer annoyance.

2) As for when I’m trying to sell the results of salvaging…OUCH! Just now, I had about 1800 copper ore to sell. Similar amounts of various woods. Now – the UI won’t LET me sell the whole lot at once, which is frustrating; I have to go through and list them (tediously) 250 at a time. But that’s life, and there may be technical reasons in the design why we’re stuck with that. Fair enough. SO: Choose price; set slider to 250; hit “list this item”. Note – the UI knows I have more I could sell, because it now gives me an “OK” button to take me back to the listing screen, with all my values saved (when I have no more to sell, all I get is a “Close” button). SO. Hit “OK”. Hit “List this item”. Hit “OK” …and so on, about 6 times, then BANG. “Too many sell orders”.

For pity’s sake – the UI knows I’m selling parts of a big batch. If it won’t let me sell the whole lot at once, at least have the goodness not to excessively and unnecessarily limit the speed I can list it at!

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Unable to initialize 3D output. Game wont launch? help !

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Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

im getting this message

Unable to initialize 3D output. Please verify that you have installed DirectX9 and an updated video driver

Adding this to an old thread because I was having this message just now on Win 7, but the resolution was different.

Following a graphics card failure I’d installed a new card and updated the drivers, but got the title message when trying to start GW2, before ever getting into game.

On investigation, dxdiag showed all of the DirectX Features as “Not available”.

I’d had to plug and unplug various graphics cards a few times whilst trying to diagnose my hardware problem, so in the end I decided to start from scratch, and completely uninstalled the graphics card drivers (via the System dialogue). Immediately following the uninstall, the DirectX features (with the exception of Direct3D Acceleration) showed as Enabled, which I felt was a promising sign. After a couple of system restarts (during one of which Windows located and reinstalled the drivers, saving me the trouble), the problem had gone.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

hidden arcana..definitely hidden

in Living World

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

The basic problem there (outside of my minimap bugging and so having no idea where i was in relation to the quest marker) is that there is two heights of shelves but little indication if the quest marker is above or below you. Never mind the camera going nuts every time you walk down a aisle…

Not sure whether this has been changed – I’ve certainly never had camera problems, and I’ve done this story episode 5 times now – but the green star by the books you have to read is, literally, right by them – i.e. at the same height. So move your camera around and find the star – if it’s above or below you, you’re on the wrong level.

Thank you Anet! (Retry Challenge Motes)

in Living World

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

It’s a small step in the right direction – but, my goodness, that last episode REALLY needs a few “skip all the stuff I’ve already done” buttons as well. We really shouldn’t have to replay through 20 or 30 minutes of unnecessary dialogue and set-up, and multiple unwanted boss fights, in order to have another go at – say – the last achievement.

Network Error 5:11:3:159:101 & 11:3:191:101

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I’m getting the ……:159:101 error repeatedly this evening, but different circumstances.

On one character I had three of what I believe to have been that error code (didn’t actually write it down, so can’t actually swear it was identical – but the last couple of numbers in the code certainly were) in a row trying to get into Mad King’s Labyrinth, then succeeded. On another, right now, I’m getting it every time I try to get to her next personal story step (Battle of Claw Island). When I then try and come back into game with her, I consistently get an “unable to gain access to the log-in server” (19:9:18:1583:101), then the client restarts. When I try her again, I log in successfully, but I’m back at the Claw Island Portage WP docks.

(Edit: On about the 7th attempt, I’ve finally managed to get into the story.)

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Boss events: Why "lfg"?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

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Doghouse.1562

OK – based on a suggestion way back (in one of Xiahou Mao’s posts). I’ve been gathering data. Yes, I agree, there seems to be a genuine tagging effect. I’m going to go back and edit my first post to put in what I’ve done/found so far.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Boss events: Why "lfg"?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

In the end though, your question is answered. You didn’t ask if the logic was right or wrong, you are simply asking why people do it. People do it for the variety of reasons listed already. Whether their thinking is correct, the perception that drives the behavior is the reason “why”

You’re technically right, of course – but then, language is often a very unspecific tool. I guess I should have asked, was there any valid reason people did it, because, yes, that’s what I was looking to understand..

Whatever – lots of good ideas up above that I can go try. Thanks, everyone.

Boss events: Why "lfg"?

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Doghouse.1562

Pretty sure I’ve seen this posted by a dev at some point in the past. It may not be as useful for world bosses, but people are creatures of habit….

“Players can also form parties with other champion farmers, which lowers the threshold of required damage in order to receive credit.”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Champion_farm

Brilliant. Assuming that part of the wiki entry came from someone in Anet, and not simply someone in the wider community repeating the common wisdom, that’s the sort of thing I was looking for. Many thanks.

Edit: Those words were added by userid Psycho Robot.7835 back in January of this year. He’s not a dev, and he doesn’t say where he got the info from – but, given how prevalent the view seems to be, if it were wrong I wouldn’t be surprised not to find anyone correcting it. So I’m still at the “looking for evidence” stage, I guess. If all else fails, I may have to go out and grind it for myself.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Boss events: Why "lfg"?

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Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

The chances to get loot when in a group are a lot higher as alone you often won’t make enough damage to count, although anet lowered that.

You see – that’s what I meant by evidence versus anecdote. What you’re saying is that you believe that, when you’re in a group, you get a degree of credit for damage that the rest of the group get. I’m not saying that’s wrong, but I’ve never noticed it myself, and I’ve never yet managed to find anything to say that it’s true, either. Can you link to something that actually confirms that’s how the game works?

I only told what I experienced, someone else stated the facts, should I quote them?

If they’re something other than the link above to Paul Younger’s article (which I’ve commented on in another reply), please!

(Please don’t you, or anyone, take my scepticism as criticism; it’s not remotely meant as such. But I’m looking for actual evidence, such as a statement from Anet that unambiguously says “players in groups get these game benefits”. I’ve played enough MMOs to know that what everyone believes isn’t always true – and in this case, whilst my mind is open to being wrong – and my ego certainly won’t be bruised if I am! – I’m not convinced.)

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Boss events: Why "lfg"?

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Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Many group up for this reason, as the party will share the kill credit:

You can read Eric Flannum’s statement about kill credit here: http://www.incgamers.com/2011/06/interview-designing-guild-wars-2-part-2

Thanks for that; I hadn’t seen it. I don’t read it the same way as you, though (and to the best of my ability I’m coming to it without an opinion either way).

Eric doesn’t say anything about being in a party affecting kill credit one way or the other – and in context of the question, I’d have thought he would have, if it made a difference. His actual example is about the other situation – someone he describes as “coming along” after a player has done damage, and getting kill credit for helping to the mob off. Later, he even talks about how it’s important to Anet to allow co-op play that isn’t strictly organised, and says that, when his friends aren’t online, he tends to solo. And when he actually talks about partying with other players versus not doing so, the only thing he mentions is “having a co-op experience with them”.

Boss events: Why "lfg"?

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Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

The chances to get loot when in a group are a lot higher as alone you often won’t make enough damage to count, although anet lowered that.

You see – that’s what I meant by evidence versus anecdote. What you’re saying is that you believe that, when you’re in a group, you get a degree of credit for damage that the rest of the group get. I’m not saying that’s wrong, but I’ve never noticed it myself, and I’ve never yet managed to find anything to say that it’s true, either. Can you link to something that actually confirms that’s how the game works?

Boss events: Why "lfg"?

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Doghouse.1562

OK, I’ve seen this question asked once before, but it didn’t get a conclusive answer (despite a couple of people in the thread seeming to think it had), so it seems worth asking again. Because it’s bugging both me and a couple of friends no end.

WHY, at every PvE boss event I ever attend, are there people spamming “lfg”? What do they expect to get from grouping?

I don’t mean complex stuff such as Tequatl and the triple worm, mind, where a bit of organisation is actually useful – this is even at all-out DPS-fests such as Maw and Shatterer, where you can pretty much go AFK and get the chest. But as I understand it (and I can’t find anything to say otherwise), parties in GW2 have always been purely social and organisational – you don’t, say, get more XP, or loot, or unique access to buffs – game-mechanics benefits – just by being in a party with someone.

So – am I missing something? Or are these just refugees from Another Game™ making assumptions about how the game works? (And if your answer is that you do get game mechanics benefits such as better loot by being in a party, if you can link to some actual evidence, rather than anecdotal opinion, I’d be very grateful.)

Edit: Based on a comment Xiahou Mao made below, I started gathering data.

I homed in on Maw as an event where one of my characters was sometimes getting a drop when solo, and sometimes not. If there was an effect, there ought to be a damage point at which I’d never get a drop when solo, but get one almost every time grouped (unless I was in a really crappy group, I guess).

Since then, I’ve been running Maw grouped and solo (roughly alternately) when I’ve been able to, spamming auto-attack only, and stopping damage when the boss got down to 50% health (no way would I ever get a drop that way on my own). Same character, same gear, same spec.

Result? After 10 runs: 5 runs in group, 5 drops. 5 runs solo, 0 drops.

A statistician would probably want a lot more data, but, yes, I’m convinced. Thanks for the discussion, guys.

(I’d have to add that I’ve been running other world bosses as well, doing my level best to beat the stuffing out of them, and the data I’ve gathered so far is far less convincing – in most of them, I don’t get a drop either way. But that could be down to any number of factors, I guess.)

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Auto Login Change (bug?)

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Fixed for me after last night’s patch.

So- what's "Account Bound on Acquire"?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

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Doghouse.1562

Thanks, guys – you’ve clarified my thoughts.

I tend towards Brother Grimm’s theory (even though I understand what you were saying, Daedalus). My real point, I guess, comes down to why something I’ve already acquired should be showing as “Account Bound on Acquire”.
(A) it seems to imply that some sort of “Acquire” – with an accompanying change of status to a simple “Account Bound” – can still happen, and
(B) it also seems to imply that they ought to be transferable until that change of status happens (which they’re not).

Answer – in my view, it shouldn’t. I’ll raise a bug on it, and let Anet think about it.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

So- what's "Account Bound on Acquire"?

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Doghouse.1562

I have a stack of XP scrolls in my bank that are “Account Bound on Acquire”. I have another that are “Account Bound”. What’s the difference (and is there any way to collapse them into a single stack)? NB: I understand the difference between “Soulbound” and “Soulbound on Acquire” – the latter aren’t Soulbound until moved into a character’s inventory. But moving my stack of ABoA scrolls to inventory changes nothing; their status stays the same.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Personal story bug?

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

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Doghouse.1562

I experienced this too, I still have the Chapter 8 missing from my Story Journal, does anyone know if we can still do the final Personal Story Victory or Death?

Yes, assuming my own experience is representative. I did “Victory or Death” for the very first time on Monday with friends, on the selfsame character I used to test out whether or not I’d get the “missing” stories.

(Basically they don’t seem to have completely broken progressing through the PS itself, even if they’ve messed up the journal; they’ve “merely” resequenced things so that three stories that were in some of our futures are now considered to be in our pasts.)

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Personal story bug?

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Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Well, not sure if its a bug… but since the feature pack update, some of the journal entries are not present in “My Story”. I’m currently on the story “The Steel Tide” (where I left off before the patch), but in my journal it only shows that I’ve completed stuff up to “Sad Duty” in chapter 7. I’ve heard there were some changes to the personal story… that “Against the Corruption” to “Source of Orr” were moved to chapter 7 and “A Sad Duty” was removed, so if I complete " The Steel Tide" will I be stuck with a chunk of my story missing?

I’ve never finished the whole story before… will I miss the Source of Orr stuff if I complete “The Steel Tide”? I really don’t want to start another character just to experience the whole story…

Tell me about it. I’ve raised bugs on both of those.

1) ANet made a mess of getting the Story Journal in synch with the altered sequence for some characters nearing the end of their personal stories. I’ve got half a dozen or more whose journals look just like yours – showing as on the wrong chapter (and at a story episode that isn’t even in the game any more….!)

2) Unless Anet have patched it in some way, yes, you’ll miss out on “Against the Corruption” through to “Source of Orr”. I tried a couple of days ago with one of my characters – who was also on “The Steel Tide”, as it happens – and she went straight to “Victory or Death”. You can always party up to do the episodes with someone else, of course, if you (quite understandably!) want to experience them.

Edit: Dropped you a PM

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic voice won't play

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Just did “Romke’s Final Voyage”, and the first cut-scene dialogue was completely silent.

Lost 3 story steps (NOT removed ones)

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

(I’ve mentioned this way some way down in the chat on a thread I raised on a related bug about the Story Journal, but it’s a bug in its own right that may or may not have the same root cause, so I’d like to flag it as such.)

My level 80 character has just reached the last Personal Story step without ever being offered three story steps that are, supposedly, still in the game. She was on “Ossiary of Unquiet Dead” when the patch hit. Last night I played that, then followed her story line through subsequent steps until she hit the final one, “Victory or Death”.

Prior to the patch she had yet to do the following story steps (which are supposedly still in the game):
- “Against the Corruption”
- “Cathedral of Silence” or “Romke’s Final Voyage”
- “The Source of Orr”
At no point last night was she offered them. They’ve just vanished from her story as though they never existed. And her Story Journal is a complete mess (the other bug I flagged).

Basically it seems that she’s been arbitrarily skipped past and deprived of three story steps that were ahead of the step she was on, but which have now been rearranged to precede it. Unfortunately, they also contained crucial parts of the overall story, without which the end of the story doesn’t make half as much sense.

Is there any intent to give characters such as mine access to the skipped steps, so that they can complete “their” personal stories?

Edit: Completed “Victory or Death” last night. Still no sign of the missing episodes.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Where did the term 'toon' come from?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Toon is a term popularized by the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit

The operative word there being “Popularized” – i.e. brought into the vocabulary of the public in general (as opposed to, say, the gaming community).

By contrast, the RPG games community (many of whom, unsurprisingly, were also early MMO players) was well familiar with and using, the term several years before that, thanks mostly to Greg Costikyan’s 1984 RPG of the same name (characters in Toon don’t “die” – they just “fall down” for a short while). So much so that, when “Who Famed Roger Rabbit?” came out, I was utterly convinced that that the writers must have picked up the term (and probably the whole idea for the film) from the game.

(Yeah, some of us have been around for quite a long time…)

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Lvl 80: Story Journal doesn't reflect PS

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Personal Story steps were rearranged, as well the way as you unlock them …

Yes, I realise that. But I’m level 80, so (a) all of the Personal Story steps should in principle now be unlocked, and (b) however things have been rearranged, if things are working correctly, my Story Journal ought to be reflecting my current personal Story step. In particular, checking on a character who’s completed the sequence (apart form the final confrontation with Zhaitan), it looks like I should be seeing “Against the Corruption” as my next story step.

Now – it’s possible that the dev’s have decided that people who are already past the PS episode 8 stuff will carry on on the old story sequence until they get to (or maybe complete) “Against The Corruption”. Or something else similar to that. In that case, it would be nice to be told. But then, that’s wishful thinking – ANet haven’t been exactly brilliant at letting us know the fine-detail impacts of this patch (and, for the record, that’s the opinion of an ex-software developer).

But either way, it doesn’t explain why I’m seeing the last episode, and only the last episode, of the mini-chain triggered from my response to the Pale Tree at the end of “A Light in the Darkness”. Either the chains have been removed (in which case I shouldn’t be seeing it at all) or they haven’t (in which case previous episodes are missing.

Edit: Having now pushed my character’s storyline forward to the point at which I would previously have been seeing “Against the Corruption” and its selectable sequel, then “The Source of Orr” – the story I have in the top-right corner is showing as “Victory or Death”. Which means I’ve been skipped past those three important story steps completely (and deprived of any new rewards they may have, to boot – and some of the new high-end story-step rewards have been quite decent – I’ve equipped a couple, and got skin unlocks from the others). Which is, to put it mildly, VERY annoying. To say nothing of completely breaking the story flow for anyone who’s at the same position with their first character! (Even more annoying as I have several more characters at more or less the same point in their stories, but I’m probably unusual in that respect.)

Oh, and my Story Journal’s still stuck right where it was.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Lvl 80: Story Journal doesn't reflect PS

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

My level 80 was at the “Ossiary of Unquiet Dead” episode of her Personal Story when the patch hit (although her active Story was Living Word Season 2, Gates of Maguuma, “Tracking the Master of Peace”).

Her Story Journal for her Personal Story now ends in section 7 (Forming the Pact). The only episodes it shows are “Forging the Pact”, “The Battle of Fort Trinity” and “Delivering Justice” (all of which she’s already completed – and there’s no sign of the predecessors to “Delivering Justice”, either, come to that).

I took her (successfully) through “Ossiary of Unquiet Dead” in hopes it would sort things out, and she’s now showing “Further Into Orr” in the top right of the screen, but her Story Journal hasn’t changed. Swapping in and out of the Living World Story makes no difference.

Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic voice won't play

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Yes, the pirate in Sharksmaw Cavern in LA doesn’t talk now, either. And I don’t hear any buzz from the wasps’ nests in Bettletun. But let’s be real, we need to be patient – those are annoying, but they’re hardly breaking the game. This soon after the patch, the dev’s will be chasing much more critical bugs than a few missing sound effects. The best thing we can do is to try and collect a few more examples, so they have the best chance of working out what’s gone wrong.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Random(?) new CoherentUI process (and lag)

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I’ve been running fine with GW2 since the patch. I use Avast!, so one of the first things I had to deal with was letting CoherentUI_Host.exe do the things it wanted to. No problem.

However – out of the blue today, I went to try to use the BLTC and Avast! popped a pair of new requests for permission for CoherentUI_Host.exe. I frowned a bit, then agreed. At which point my game went into lag overdrive, with the client graphics stuttering and the whole thing generally unusable. Bringing up task manager (I’m on Win 7), I could see two copies of the process running at 25% of CPU each, plus GW2 itself (also at 25%). I closed GW2 down – the client went away, but none of the processes, and the CPU figures stayed static at 25% for each. At that point I restarted Windows, opened task manager, then started the GW2 client. I could see that there were, again, two copies of the CoherentUI_Host.exe process (I realise that that may be the normal state of affairs – I wonder whether a previous one crashed silently, and a new one was started?).

Skill Points/Leveling after recent update

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Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

The problem I noticed with my friend is with new characters, for some reason when you are trying to complete maps, the game doesn’t show all the tasks. I have characters that have the whole world map completion done and I know where tasks (heart events) are supposed to be. I was running on Wayfarer foothills, level 1 -15 map, and some of the tasks just won’t pop up with my new character, same happened to my friend. I have to say that on this update, Anet made a mistake, this whole new “better” way of teaching new players is only confusing and full of bugs.

At least one of the hearts in Wayfarer Foothills has been moved (the rabbit-food event is now down near the entrance to the northern half of the area, rather than up above). The same may be true of others, I guess?

Skill points not working since new patch.

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I’ve seen the same thing on my level 13. The thing is, you used to (rather illogically) be able to gain Skill Points before you could spend them. I think that all that’s happened is that ANet have “corrected” that. Right now my level 13 not only can’t interact with Skill Challenges, she can’t see them on the map either. I presume (although I haven’t confirmed it) that, when Skill Points become available at – I think – level 20, that will change.

Edit: She just hit level 14, and now she can see them.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Can't change my skills

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Now it makes sense… the slots were previously unlocked, now they are locked but skills assigned there remained.

Yup. At least three confusing changes that weren’t flagged ahead of time:
- If you have skills in in slots you’re no longer “entitled to”, you’ll still see the slots, but you can’t change the skills.
- Skills that you may have already bought with Skill Points aren’t available, if you swap them off the bar, until Skill Points themselves become available once more (I have no idea whether they then “magically” become available again – haven’t got to that point yet).
- If you previously had a weapon-swap, you’ll keep it, but you can’t change it to a different weapon – and if you un-equip the one you have, you’ll lose the swap.

Broken voice effects after patch

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

A number of voice/sound effects seem broken or missing following the patch. Ones I’ve noticed in particular have been the ghostly pirate in the LA Sharkmaw caverns jumping puzzle, which is not playing for me at all, and the various Copper-Fed Salvage-o-matic scripts (which play for a fraction of a second, then cut out).
Edit: also the wasps nests in Beetletun, which no longer buzz when I get near (although I still get the “nest destroyed” buzzing effect).

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Skill Points/Leveling after recent update

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Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Castrin, thanks for clarifying. This is a really terrible change. No skill options until level 20. Makes me not want to bother really.

Ignoring whether the change is basically good or bad (it’s obviously different, and I’m not convinced, but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt until I’ve levelled a character under it) – it looks to have possibly also broken what used to be a fundamental levelling concept for new players – namely map completion.

My level 10 alt is currently working her way through Queensdale (still showing as “1-15”). She can’t see Skill Challenges on the maps, and can’t claim them when she gets to them – she just gets a few lines of blurb, a cancel button and the text “I’ll come back later”. Her Queensdale Completion stats still show Skill Challenges though (firmly stuck at 0/7, obviously). So, even assuming she takes until level 15 to do everything in the zone that she CAN do (which, in my experience, is rare), she’ll be moving on before she can claim them and complete the map (and without the XP from completing it, to boot). And if I want to complete the map, she’ll have to interupt the flow of what she’s doing, and come back later. I have to assume that the other starting zones are similarly impacted. Frankly, that’s downright ugly, awkward, and all in all, NOT very clever!

Edit: My character became able to see Skill Challenges on the map, and interact with them, at level 14. And the “next level rewards” tip for level 14 flagged “Area Completion” as becoming available at level 15. So I owe Anet an apology; looks like it’s more or less working as you’d hope (given the level advancement changes).

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Auto Login Change (bug?)

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Yeah, there is a reddit thread up too. I’m okay with the change if they provide us with compelling evidence why it was bad behavior (and get rid of the 4 second count down).

I’ve always suspected that the countdown was there to make sure we at least had a chance to look at whatever messages they’d posted on the second panel. If so, though, it doesn’t do its job – I’m always just at the stage of thinking “Hmm, I ought to read that…” when the countdown ends, and I lose the hyperlink…

The Good the Bad & the Ugly - BLTP

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I’m also upset about when you cancel a buy order, it moves to the top of your buy order list. So if you’re canceling a bunch of old buy orders, you scroll down, cancel, confirm, scroll down, cancel confirm, … this takes at least 10 times longer than it used to.

Sort by date, oldest first, problem solved.

While this solves “oldest” buy orders, it doesn’t solve the issue if the ones I want to cancel are “in the middle”, no matter which sorting option is selected.

Yes, that’s bad. The fact that you can sometimes find a sort sequence that works for you is simply a work-around that you shouldn’t need in the first place, and doesn’t address the underlying problem – NO interface should change your position in a list when you do something you’re likely to want to do multiple times on different entries. I’ve been involved in testing UIs that did that, and it is ALWAYS a pain. Either it’s bad design – in which case the dev in question needs to get on top of it, and quickly – or it’s a “feature” of the way that the new interface package works – in which case that is, to put it mildly, “unfortunate”, and we need additional function (such as selection boxes).

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

The Good the Bad & the Ugly - BLTP

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

They also removed the clicking fast to place multiple orders at once. That’s understandable, but they should at least increase how many you can buy at a time.

To be fair to whichever dev coded that, the fact that you could do that at all was almost certainly an “unintended consequence” of the way that the interface was previously coded. But having said that – I agree. The fact that so many people used it should have been a heavy clue to the fact that buy orders larger than 250 needed some TLC as part of the interface change.

Auto Login Change (bug?)

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

With the new update the auto login behavior no longer works the same. Before the game would automatically log in to my account then start the game after the 4 second count down.

After the patch the game now requires I click the login button manually (the 4 second count down still works).

I’m seeing the same. I have both userid and password remembered. I also tried explicitly adding the -autologin parameter (referenced in the wiki) to the program command, but that made no difference. It’s not exactly a huge deal, but it IS annoying.

The Good the Bad & the Ugly - BLTP

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I’m not so upset about the inability to ‘add to lowest listing’ as I am about not knowing if I already have something listed and at what price.

Well – that’s effectively what I was doing, but for faster-moving, volatile stuff (like foxfires, recently). “Is it still there? OK, my last price was maybe a bit too high…”

I’m also upset about when you cancel a buy order, it moves to the top of your buy order list. So if you’re canceling a bunch of old buy orders, you scroll down, cancel, confirm, scroll down, cancel confirm, … this takes at least 10 times longer than it used to.
They also removed the clicking fast to place multiple orders at once. That’s understandable, but they should at least increase how many you can buy at a time. This TP is more individual than the last one, meaning it’s good at buying 1 item but not so good at buying multiple items. It takes so long to place one buy order that to buy 20,000 items, for example, is stupid complicated and time consuming.

Ouch. And ouch again. Hadn’t found either of those yet, but I suspect I’m going to hate them both.

The Good the Bad & the Ugly - BLTP

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Add:

The Bad
- Removal of “Add to your lowest listing” ((Now it’s gone, I realise that I used that a lot with stuff I was selling regularly, that I was sometimes pricing higher than the current lowest offers, to monitor whether or not it was selling and therefore whether I was setting my prices realistically. Now I have to go through the hassle of bringing up the list of what I’m selling to find the same info, and frankly it’s too much trouble. And I also have to keep a note of what I’m selling for, unless I’m going to be continually checking. Again, more hassle than I need.))

The Good? The Bad?
- Can no longer accidentally (but more to the point, not deliberately either) sell at a price that will undercut the vendors ((selling price now has to be at least vendor price once listing and exchange fees have been deducted, and the interface brings up a “minimum price” error message if you try to select a lower offer or enter a lower price)).

The Ugly
- Yup… Font and button sizes on a big screen for much of the detailed info. I run 1920×1080, and some of those numbers and buttons are miniscule.

Oh – and it’s a pain to have to keep grabbing the (tiny!) slider, to pull it across when I want to sell everything in a stack – previously the interface often came up set to that value, and when it didn’t I had a big, friendly button to push.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

so when is the expansion....

in Living World

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

The 2011 Manifesto Video, showed a glympse of what ANet wants to do with GW2. Just because it didn’t go there right from launch, or one or two years in, doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten about it or scrapped it entirely. It just means they have the tools, they’re perfecting them, and they’re learning them. Season 1 to Season 2 was huge leap. Can you imagine Season 3, 4, 5? I can. The ride, the journey, will be awesome. The players were developers in that sense. And it’ll be quite amazing.

I broadly agree with what you say, and I truly hope you’re absolutely spot on – but I want to inject just one note of wet-blanket reality into the picture: the video showed what ANet wantED to do with GW2, 3 years ago. People, and business needs and plans, change. Whatever ANet were planning on 3 years back, there’s no guarantee that they’ll stick to their plan in the future, or ever even attempt to deliver it.

By “People change”, I mean that companies, mostly, go on – but the individuals within it move to new positions, or flat-out leave the company and get replaced by others. And everyone that comes in new wants to make their mark on the product.

(And that’s especially true if they’re management – it’s a truism that any new manager, given a team that is working to absolutely perfect goals and in ways that can’t possibly be improved, will still have to change things – often quite substantially – so that their bosses can see they’re “doing their job”. Sad but true.)

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Paying for past content?

in Living World

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I just logged in for the first time in over a year. I saw a new zone had opened up, and that past story was available (at-least S2)

I then saw it would cost me money to access old content everyone else received for free, then promptly uninstalled. It went against everything I thought GW2 was. I would just pay for a subscription game if I was interested in something like this.

So you would have preferred to not be able to access it at all? Because that was the case before they added the new system.

If you login during the time an episode is active (usually two weeks) you unlock it for free. If you don’t, you can pay 200 gems in order to unlock it accountwide for ever.

If you don’t want to pay, you can join someone else that have the episode unlocked and do it that way.

Exactly. ANet have managed to find a way to keep available at least SOME of the old, temporary content that would otherwise have been gone and forgotten. That’s a plus, not a reason for uninstalling. OK, so they’ve decided to try to monetarise it – fair enough, they’re a business, not a charity. Except, of course, they haven’t, entirely; it’s purchasable entirely with in-game currency costing no more than the effort to earn it, IF you think it’s worth your time to go to the trouble of unlocking it.

(I can and do most definitely take issue with the price that ANet are asking – 200gems per episode is a LOT when you consider that we’re already up to 4 such episodes, the number is only going to grow, and the people likely to “need” to unlock the content are precisely those who haven’t yet built up a decent bank account, and will struggle to find the in-game gold needed. And in all honesty, I don’t think that the actual content you get for your gems is half enough to justify paying the real-money equivalent – $10/10euros, £8.52p for LS2’s 4 episodes to date. If it were bundled into a single, one-time-payment package at that price, I think we’d most of us be complaining about the lack of content for the money, and I can see future players feeling that even more so as the number of episodes rises. So I think the price model is going to need to change – soon and possibly by quite a bit. But that’s a different discussion.)

(edited by Doghouse.1562)