Guild Wars 2

I fear I was far too involved playing to screenshot much, but I did get the initial appearance, a Malyx form, and my dyed armor in sunlight (note: the chest sigil and the ribbed lines on the back actually glow the color you dye them, much like the Magitech lenses on the medium coat).

The two hours flew by! I like that the “don’t help Laranthir” option is disabled so there’s still story to find come HoT. There was a great sense of exploration and sharing of info in Map Chat, and not a hint of lag or connection issues for me.

It was a pleasant surprise to find that I had all my account dyes available to change up my Revenant’s look. I still rushed it a bit because I wasn’t going to spend the whole demo playing dress up but he came out looking different, which was my goal. I could swear I picked blindfold #3 — though perhaps I did get it as a skin in my inventory while getting the standard level 80 exotic beta gear to wear.

I didn’t find much in the way of bugs. The mushroom thing turns out to need you to get a level “ding” while it’s your active mastery, or so people said. I hit F to jump and as the F key went down the demo ended. So maybe it would have worked?

At the start I tested the hammer 3 skill before straying too far from the biconics. Each time my character (male) screamed like he was falling. But when I did it later after some cinematics and events the scream was gone. I tried using it on a steep slope, still no scream. So I don’t know why it screamed at the start.

Possibly big issue: Deposit Materials worked. I don’t know how many Armored Scales I had before the demo, but I was able to deposit 4 of them. I am sure they were going to my bank because I could deposit all the mats I got except the mithril ore, which I have a capped stack of in the bank. I do not know if they actually went there. I’ll try to remember to take notes of my T6 mats amounts before the next demo, assuming I get to play it.

Either that’s a nice small perk for our time helping in the stress test or there’s going to be an inventory mess and possible account hiccups for doing something bad. (Though in the same 2 hours I guess I could have gained far more mats in a round of Silverwastes, so maybe it’s just considered a minor benefit to testers).

In the last half hour people explained that in map chat, so I churned through some events to try to ding the level. I made it with 2 minutes to spare, ran pell mell for the mushroom, leaped atop it and hit F — and at that exact moment the demo ended.

So I don’t know if I would have launched into the air or not.

I just went back to the screen and now Create Beta Character is showing.

It’s a few minutes past start and the Revenant button is greyed out. I even restarted my whole computer. Anyone else in the beta having that problem?

I don’t see a “Create Beta Character” button either, just the beta slot with a regular Create and “Beta” stamped over a blank character select.

I saw you working on a Revenant, is creation available? I was waiting to log in until the test started, per the email instructions.

Per the FAQ no WvW or PvP. That likely means not testing Stronghold or borderland stuff unless they somehow have segregated instances of those.

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/91220997-Heart-of-Thorns-Beta-FAQ

I’ve wanted this for a while, though I’ve learned not to put soulbound items in the bank. I goofed when swapping an alt to black wings though, and put non-visual green straps in the bank. It took about 8 relogs to find out which alt had done that, as I didn’t remember putting the straps in there in the first place.

I haven’t tested playing while loading yet, as the builds load so quickly that I really don’t want to stress things unnecessarily.

This next may be my lack of tech expertise, but I vaguely understand that SSD’s have a limited read/write lifetime. A large one, but limited. Does that mean it’s harder on my SSD’s lifespan to conduct more simultaneous operations?

The email just says “Pacific” but right now it’s 5 minutes to 9 Pacific, so the test begins in 3 hours 5 minutes.

I’m lucky enough that my time zone (eastern) is always in lockstep with pacific by a 3 hour difference, and I grew up on both coasts and have family on both coasts, so it’s second nature for me to allow for the time difference.

Be ready in three hours from when I posted this and you’ll be good to go.

Kal Spiro.9745:

I personally would like to see word bubble text in the color of the channel it’s being displayed through.

That would be neat … IF they first make emotes easier to read than dull pale grey. (If they included emotes in word bubbles anyway). I will never give up asking for this fix! Brighter emotes or player controlled channel colors, a real QoL change!

Meanwhile I hope they go back to black text in the bubbles because it’s far too easy to visually blank out the green. It takes a bit of mental muscle flexing to focus in on the green, just as it does the grey emotes. I say that even though green has always been my favorite color.

The question is the other direction, will the beta test character have access to our account goodies? I’d hope not, but it feels a bit odd having the beta slot just mooshed in with our existing client.

I think they will, That_Shaman datamined the promo Gem Store pics for all three.

Please report back on that, Palador. I don’t want to even spend that much, not if someone else is testing it for the benefit of us all

I didn’t actually try to go all the way to creation, I stopped when I couldn’t make Revenant. But hitting “Create” on the slot did let me start the process.

Oooh, here is what it looks like. (It even let me start making a character in it, but Revenant is still not available).

I have a similar question — is the second session a repeat of the first? Ie do we start all over again if we can do both sessions? Or do we keep the alt we made in the first one?

hrasna.3017:

I don’t want to start a new guy then have him disappear after the beta is done.

-Chris

There is no way in the world they could let people make beta characters that persist to live. Beta will be full of bugs and exploitable things. It will include access to accelerated masteries and to achievements, to gear and loot not yet available in live. Plus beta encourages actively seeking exploits and trying to break the game; you don’t get to use your ill-gotten gains on your real account.

I admit I was sad that I got Donari’s face just right early on in a beta but even with screenshotted sliders he never came out quite the same again. But all the times I made him and all the professions he was gave me a lot of time to get to know him so RP flowed smoothly right through launch, without me being locked in to his first iteration.

Anyway, if you don’t want to get too attached, don’t spend time customizing. Use whatever default look they give you and just get to testing mechanics.

lordkrall.7241:

You could get access to the Beta Weekend Events, but those were more marketing stuff rather than actual beta tests.

I disagree with this point, as some substantial changes were made based on player feedback from the BWE’s. The game remained recognizably the same, true, but it wasn’t a done deal set in stone before we ever got our hands on beta access.

It seems likely to me that pre-orders will include guaranteed beta invites. However, ANet was very classy about it in the BWE’s. If too many people started logging in, they actually suspended sales of the game rather than overload the servers beyond the needs of testing, so people playing could stay reasonably reliably connected. That could happen again.

Google is a good way to search. Meanwhile, just zoning with all the stacks in your bags will let you merge them, and new items of the same type seem to go on the stack just fine thereafter so you only have to do it once per bugged item type.

Did you get achievement chests back when they dropped PvP skins?

Your first line answers the question. “Anet doesn’t give us the next update schedule, so there’s no-way to tell how long the shadow weapons will remain as 1 ticket.”

Generally they last until a new set of ticket weapons debuts, could be a couple of weeks, could be a couple of months. New ones tend to show up on Tuesdays, so on any day you see them for 1 ticket, they should still be 1 ticket for the rest of the week until Tuesday.

I don’t even know what it means, so I sure wasn’t.

I’m not so sure the Raiment actually changes the legs so much as bends them and puts on an extra long foot. It looks the same to me as well-made RL satyr legs (I’ve gone to my fair share of cons and long before “cosplay” was a term people were doing hall costumes and masquerade contest costumes).

What you’re looking for is a tonic that can be used in combat and doesn’t have a five minute use with a one hour cooldown.

It was March 16. I haven’t gone to see how it changed.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-March-16-2015/first#post4902800

BALANCE, BUG-FIXING, POLISH
World Polish

Gendarran Fields
Adjusted the number of scaling spawns for the “Prevent the centaurs from capturing Nebo Terrace” group event to be less punishing for large groups.
Adjusted the start timing of the “Reclaim Nebo Terrace from the centaurs” and “Rescue the captured townspeople from the centaurs” events.
Increased the damage dealt by the catapults of Nebo Terrace to creatures. This does not apply to champion creatures.

rotten.9753:

Windsagio.1340:

I have some buddies I do fractals with; occasionally the concept comes up of whether we should do some dungeon speedruns to make some $$$. It’s never about anything else though.

Because people play silverwastes for fun.

Actually, I do. While I sorta kinda want the Preserved Queen Bee (Ok, I really want it, I just know it’ll never drop) and that gives me a slight extra boost to hopping to SW for a round, mostly I just enjoy doing a full round from prep to Breach to Vinewrath to Labyrinth. Not multiple times in short order, but every day or so I like to spend time on that.

In dungeons I have some I love — CM, for instance, I adore going in there — and some I loathe — CoF, SE, Arah — and it’s all due to the aesthetics. I’ll go where my guild group feels like going, but I get worn out much faster if everything is lava or rotten gunk.

I’d do TA Aether plenty if it wasn’t long enough to make my guildies prefer to avoid it.

I don’t really make money on dungeons, not like people seem to think can be done. I salvage most everything and keep the mats for personal use or for helping out friends in need of mats. I just run them for fun.

And if they gave us new dungeons that felt like real areas — mmm CM furnishings and estate layout — I’d be thrilled to run them. I’m not even a major dungeon runner! I just like it as part of the buffet of experiences GW2 offers.

I thought I read a patch note saying they’d fixed the scaling so large numbers of players didn’t turn Nebo into wall to wall champs, elites, and vets any more.

It needed fixing, too. Basically Nebo was guaranteed to fall after a protracted death fest for the players, followed by a ridiculously fast and simple re-take of the fort.

Any character you make for beta is temporary. I don’t know that you’ll even be able to use your account resources for it, but please don’t use up 80 tomes if that’s an option — your character will only exist for 2 hours on Tuesday. 4 hours maybe, if the second session is a continuation rather than a repeat.

In the 2012 betas we got full weekends to test the game, though PS cut off at the end of the racial arc. We had to start new characters every time (Donari had a lot of last names, mostly involving “Smiling” somehow, and was an Engineer and a Ranger and a Thief). At the end for short “surprise! Tomorrow is another beta session” events and stress tests they let us keep previously made alts, but all were wiped come launch.

The only thing we retained were gems we’d bought, we got to use those up in beta to test gem shop items and have them reapplied at launch.

True, you can certainly save a name right now by dedicating a character slot to it. Then you just can’t use that slot for however long it is until launch, because why level up something that was born to die?

So far I’m the only one in my guild who got one that I know of. Even my GM who has played since GW1, done a ton of fantastic GW-related art, visited ANet HQ and applied for employment there, even she hasn’t got one.

I’m also the only one in my guild who posts a lot on these forums … but as people have noted invites going to those who only just got the game, that can’t be the deciding factor.

The way I read the OP, s/he is tongue in cheek using this as a way to exult about getting a great job and is not at all seriously asking ANet to cater to his/her schedule.

I believe it will be 80 and start in the Verdant Brink, just as in the demos we’ve seen streamed.

Name? I’d strongly suggest not using your desired live release name. All the stuff from beta will be erased and you’ll have to start fresh at release, at least it worked that way in original launch. If you use a name you like now, someone could easily say “cool name bro” and snag it at launch.

Hint for getting names at launch: Create a random character. Don’t even take time to pick race/gender/profession. Skip to End the moment you can, put the name in, create.

Then whenever you want to really make the alt, delete the random one. The name will be yours for 24 hours, giving you plenty of time to set sliders and tweak appearance choices at your leisure. I did this at launch with my 5 slots, got every name I wanted, and I still have amusing screenshots of the random characters I had before they became real.

Eep, I just saw this and am heading to bed. I’ll be glad to lead another run through tomorrow afternoon (eastern time, Sunday). But if you don’t want to wait for me all you need to is head to the entrance, post an LFG for Arah Story with a note about “my first run” or something similar. You should have a full group in seconds because of everyone waiting for someone else to be the group starter.

Nice things happen almost every day in this game, but I’ll give a shout out to the guildie who made me a pile of 18-slot bags in the first month or two of the game. I had no idea at the time how much gold those cost to make. And believe me, gold was rare back then. I remember hesitating to buy gold with gems that XMas to get the flute-shaped Minstrel precursor for a friend who ICly needed a flute. 9 gold, zomg, that was expensive!

I’m still using the bags, having shifted them to alts as I got 20 slotters on my main.

Storage space has to be about the nicest thing anyone can give me in games Otherwise I sort of groan when I get new cool things because I have to find room for them.

(Also that guildie continues to rock. He’s super competent at everything in the game and unstintingly shares his time and knowledge with the rest of us, in the nicest possible way).

I would be very unhappy if this happened. Because Tyria has no toilets, showers, or running water. It doesn’t even have bathrooms. I need my long hot shower every morning!

(OK, maybe it has those things but they just don’t show in the game world. But the only references are old LA talking about letting it all flow into sewers that drain into the bay, and the occasional sewer grate in DR).

Plus I am a frail weak person. I would hope I was happily ensconced in the safety of DR’s noble district, with servants and stuff, but if I just woke up in Tyria as me, well, I can’t read New Krytan — another nightmare, one of my greatest illogical fears being suddenly unable to read — and I would probably quickly be a homeless beggar murdered for her clothes.

I generally opine that come the Apocalypse, be it zombies or nuclear destruction or planes falling from the sky because combustion no longer works well enough to make engines and guns work (see SM Stirling’s novels of the Change), well, you know those millions dead the first day or two? I’ll be one of those, not a plucky survivor. I don’t want to live in a non-tech anarchic world anyway. Hopefully I’ll die before I know the world as I know it has ended.

Now, if I get to wake up in Tyria as one of my alts, hmmmmm …. a few of them could be fun to be and they have lots of friends. I’d pick my human necro but she has a super bad back. My human mesmer, maybe, she’s rich and competent, though not terribly experienced at combat. And she does a lot of accounting … ick. My other alts tend to have life issues, or they’re male and I’m not sure I’d want to live in a male body.

Please don’t toss me into Tyria, I guess I’m saying. I like the life I have

We don’t know yet what will be in the beta because they haven’t told us. However, one might assume that the betas further down the road will include systems revealed in blogs and will not include things not yet revealed.

As to the “1,000’s of people activating the Glider or a Jump Mushroom in the same area,” ooooh. Siphaed, you’re on to something. Now I want to organize a mass lemming drop of everyone that has a glider.

/laughing quite a bit

I found out during RP today that the panning camera turning your character while in first person also works when sitting.

So now you can very politely ask someone to sit and spin.

I have not got video software but I would love someone to get a film of a whole lot of people spinning in place while seated …

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Character-Slot-for-Heart-of-Thorns-Merged

Prophet.6257:

anyone streaming atm?

If you mean streaming the beta, that would be difficult since it doesn’t start until Tuesday

Is every other heart accounted for? I think they removed some hearts in starter areas so the wiki might be out of date. I haven’t worked on Metrica lately so I can’t help beyond saying compare the whole map to yours.

http://gw2.mmorpg-life.com/metrica-province-map-of-pois-waypoints-vistas-skills-and-more/4575/ might also help except it shows that missing heart so it may not be up to date.

In the meantime, if you have multiples of the same and don’t need them on alts … I just checked the TP and some of them are going for over 15 gold. Or at least listed thus, I have no idea if anyone’s buying.

I’m absolutely sure there will be more. The original game had a closed beta (with NDA), followed by three open beta weekends (by invite, but no NDA), followed by several stress tests of various lengths.

They’ll want to test all the major features, so they’ll have more betas as more things get into finished enough form to test.

Yeah, we have a thread with someone concerned about how the Revenant armor dyes thanks to previews, we must give feedback on poor dye channel choice! (Seriously it might be worth a couple of minutes to check that, as the 4 channels in the preview window are not always accurate to actual dye options).

There’s a thread on that, and someone made a cogent point that it’s unlikely as all heck they’d put in specializations before giving us a blog on them. Most likely it will be the same demo as seen at PAX and REZZED, just with a ton more people playing at once — hence “stress” test.

I’m sure I’ll do Revenant in the first session. Assuming the character is wiped and we restart in the second session (and if I can play the second session without my husband getting unhappy I ditched a Tuesday evening), I think it would be a good idea to try a different profession to see how it handles.

So probably Mesmer, right now I use it most in dungeons and LS achieves so I know it best and am more likely to spot issues.

That’s a beautiful name. Well chosen! And with all her siblings she can laugh in the face of anyone who ever tries to twist it into Loner or Alone-yeah (kids will mock any name they can).

It should work if you put one space between the quotes and the dash

I got “invalid path” repeatedly until I did that. Right click on your desktop shortcut, select Properties, select the Shortcut tab if it’s not highlighted already, and add spacedashStreamingClient — it should accept that.

Agreed, Hamfast, if they first get community input on good sets of townclothes. I don’t want to put up with the ugly mixes they slapped together, though I suppose dyes would help a bit.

It would also be nice if old townclothes items for gloves and boots were translated into all three weights of armor skin, still with the cultural differences in style. The Fancy Winter Boots and the Executioner Boots look wonderful; the Cook’s Shoes were so cute with the short-shorts (which are gone completely right now, darn it). Surely those things wouldn’t be so much trouble to rig up, as the models for them already exist?

I would consider it extremely rude to make those of us that bought them before buy them again however! So either free to those who have the outfits previously unlocked, or available in-game, not via gems.

The other one has HoT tshirts as the sole prizes and they are awwwweeesooomme. I’m ok with the Rytlock one, don’t need a lanyard, and absolutely don’t need Heroes of the Storm. It just is so nice of Twaddlefish to do this contest, and I’m always happy to sing GW2’s praises! Perhaps people are posting on Twaddlefish’s YouTube page, too.