Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, folks, lords and ladies, whatever…

You’re welcome to have a different opinion than the OP. You’re welcome to say it. But don’t make snarky or insulting comments, please. If your opinion has value, you don’t need put-downs to make your point, hmmmm?

Thanks.

How very clever, Sanderinoa, and how generous, too!

I hope the event is very successful and that those so honored appreciate your kindness. (As I am sure they will!)

Thanks for being such an awesome member of the community!

As you can see, there are several opinions on this one. Lots of people love crafting, and they enjoy the satisfaction of making something through their own efforts (and talent). Others point out that sometimes, on an economic level, you might be ahead to just buy the items you want instead of gathering ingredients and components.

I suspect that if you’re a “completionist” type of player, you might like doing the former, might enjoy “the thrill of the hunt” and that “I made this!” feeling. But there’s a time consideration that may lead you to complete other things instead.

In the end, I’d suggest you give the Guild Wars 2 Wiki a read, because there are some nice information and discussion pages on the subject that could help you reach the right decision for you.

But I have to quote:

Anchoku.8142:

Craft for the fun of it, too.

So true.

For an official answer, “Blocked” normally means suspended, although in some cases it could mean the account is terminated. In any case, our messaging isn’t very solid right now in relation to suspensions and termination. We used to give more specific information in the message you see when you try to log in. Somehow, just recently, everything reverted to a generic “block” message, which we sure understand is frustrating.

If you contact Customer Support, they can answer your questions. You can submit a ticket by clicking “Support” at the top of this page and then clicking the “Submit a request” option. Provide as much information as possible in the web form, which will create a ticket within the support system. If you do not know some of the information requested, leave the field blank. However, there are two drop-down areas that require an answer so be sure to choose from those fields so the ticket is properly submitted. Once you’ve done that, the CS Team should be able to help you.

Berk.8561:

And that’s probably exactly why they’ve stopped talking about anything that’s not almost ready to be deployed, because anything they say that they are working on or intend on implementing with generate type and players will care about it a lot and they’ll get angry if it never happens or doesn’t happen for a long time.

Yes, that’s definitely true. As Mike O’Brien said in a recent post, “We’ve set a clear policy in the past year: we don’t talk speculatively about future development. We don’t want to string you along. Creating fun is an uncertain business: sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t; sometimes we go back to the drawing board over and over before we get something right. If we make optimistic promises and then can’t deliver on them, everyone suffers. So when we attend a trade show or give an interview, we’re there to talk about what we’re getting ready to ship, not to speculate on what we might ship someday.”

We truly understand the interest that our loyal players have in knowing more, but we’re not able to share too much at this juncture for the reasons that are stated above and outlined in more detail in Mike’s post.

Rest assured — and my daily e-mails confirm this — the devs are reading the forums daily to keep abreast of your input on a wide variety of game elements, in addition to which they’re analyzing, prioritizing, weighing whether to and how to address areas of concern, considering how to implement positive changes, and much more, based on the input you give us on the forums.

As Mike also said in his post, much value has come through the CDI’s. I just prowled the hallways to see if I could find out more about the timeline for the current and future CDI. Alas, Chris Whiteside is in a meeting, but I know he’s committed to the format so I hope you’ll be involved in those and if there are some dates he or I can provide one of us will do that later.

You’re right, tenklo and AP. These outfits were extremely popular in Guild Wars, and they were much requested as additions for Guild Wars 2. I understand what you’ve said, Lady Grimm, but I think as a matter of fulfilling the request — and for a sort of “cultural integrity” — it’s good that it was recreated as it was.

(And yes, I happen to be amongst those who love this set. )

Please do review the website so that you can post accurately. There will be a Halloween event, as mentioned in the link post by Donari above.

Aidan is right, that’s phishy. I think everyone will find this thread about phishing e-mails very helpful in identifying genuine e-mails versus phishing attempts. Please give that thread a look if you find you’ve gotten an e-mail, and of course, for your security you should look at all e-mails with a careful eye.

As far as warnings: There have been a few rare instances when a GM will reach out to a player. It’s very uncommon, but it can happen. In cases of an e-mail contact, we will never present you with a live link that would involve your logging in, nor would we ask you for any identifying information within the e-mail. As far as in-game warnings, you can find some info on that here. But please note that we do not send personal e-mails or give in-game warnings in 99.9999% of the cases of real or potential infractions. CS relies on the normal warnings given through the system itself in the vast majority of cases.

Thank you for finding those links, Robert. It’s helpful for everyone to see real resources, and those who missed them (or forgot about them) may enjoy reading them.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I really love what they do with the CDIs and I’m an active contributer there (it’s really fun and constructive nowadays) ~snip~

I can’t emphasize enough how helpful the CDIs are for us, and how much we value the input everyone provides. Please stayed involved — or get involved! — and share your thoughts — they really do make a difference.

Silent The Gray.3091:

The passion in these posts is very real, I just wish everyone was able to see that it’s an expression of passion and not one of hate as they might first appear

Oh no worries! I know that. We know that. It would be awful to have a player base that was indifferent. Instead, it’s awesome that we have players who feel passion for the game, for more content, for changes, the whole lot.

Some posts are heated. Some are rude. And a few are garbage. But in the end, everyone who is asking for more information cares, and cares deeply, and that’s something we respect and something we’re making directed changes to address.

LumpOfCole.4701:

I’m going to give this method a try.

As a customer of Guild Wars 2, I’d like to formally request some ‘The Frog’ cameos to be occasionally stocked in Lions Arch.

Uh huh. I see what you did there.

I’m going to turn to our composer, Maclaine, to see if he might be able to identify that piece. He’s super busy, but if he has time to post, I think he’ll let us know if he can provide the title. Thanks for asking.

Melvin.3295:

I see your point about bach. I just hope new people who pick up an instrument from the gemstore don’t just think it is alright to macro any song since I’m sure it is the same thing as using a bot.

Honestly, I’m not sure, but I’m going to ask Customer Support about it. The fact is, we have a policy against automating gameplay through the use of macros or bots. But music? I just don’t know if the rules about third-party programs extend to non-game-related situations.

Good to hear, Nekres. I love what you and other music makers are bringing to the community!

Welcome back, Vukorep.

I think you’ve got some input here on what’s newer from Iason and Vayne as far as content, feature additions, etc. And I imagine you’re aware that the Halloween event begins on October 21st, and that Season 2, Part 2 started on November 4th. There’s quite a bit coming up!

It’s a cute idea, the collector idea, although it’s sort of scattered between NPCs, worlds (remember, Whiteside is a person and a world), locations, and more. So it certainly would be a different concept. Still, fun thought.

Oh and yes, I’m completely sure they named that whole color theme for me!

That would be really great. We’d like to put up a Lute section for sure.

[I never could figure out why lutes lost their popularity after the Middle Ages. I really like ’em! ]

Oh lord, I love that piece! What a great thing to learn to play in Tyria.

When you get it nailed down, let me know, ok! <3 !

Hey Melvin. I think I understand the frustration. You’ve acquired the instruments and you’ve become proficient in their use, and it’s obviously something you care about. But, I wager your music is different (and probably way better ) than the macro’d stuff, right? So I’d just keep doing what you do and I wouldn’t let what others are doing interfere with your enjoyment of making music!

Put another way: If there had been CD players back in Bach’s day, so you think he would have stopped composing or playing because someone was playing canned music outside Thomaskirche Leipzig? I rather think not.

John Smith.4610:

JBDanger.2603:

John Smith.4610:

Sariel V.7024:

Any chance for a response on my question? I think you may have missed it.

I apologize, I can’t currently speak on that.

Anet’s famous response for everything!!!

This is a 14 page thread of me answering all I can; throw me a bone sometimes.

Seriously, guys, John’s an amazing forum contributor. Play nicely — we want him to keep up the good info as he’s able to give it!

Thanks nottsgman and Ic for helping out with advice for TitanZ.

And TitanZ, welcome to the game!

If you’ve done the checks and still feel you’re missing minis, the CS Team will be happy to take a look for you!

Great read, thanks for the smiles!

Blude.6812:

Anet (Gaile)—anyway to get Amazon(world wide) to get these at real retail value and review their 3rd party seller rip offs?
Can Anet provide stock to Amazon in numbers to meet demand? Or is Amazon refusing to carry the cards because they don’t sell or little demand?

There was a period of reexamination on the part of… someone. I don’t know if it was them, or us. But the decision was made to order up, which Amazon did, and provably that purchase was a resounding success because from what I’m seeing here, they sold out again and needed to order more. (Which I think they’re doing now.)

The Sales Director told me they’re looking at other options. But I can tell you, as a consumer (as we all are) your voice is powerful. If you want a retailer or an online seller to stock cards, drop them a quick e-mail. If you feel the price a third-party (non-authorized reseller) is charging is out of line, decline to buy from them and tell Amazon (or whomever) that you want them to carry the cards. (We have no influence on the independent sellers on Amazon, sorry.)

I’ve gotten in the habit of asking my local grocery store to carry a certain frozen entree. At first, they ordered it for me. Then they started carrying it. The same can be true if you let your favorite store or online seller know “If you carry this, I will buy it.” For to a seller, there is seldom a more persuasive statement.

For those of you making serious suggestions, thanks and keep ‘em coming. For those posting off topic comments, please don’t. This is a good thread – let’s make it work.

Thanks for posting, Danikat. Like you, I think those are some of the best minis we’ve offered. (Serious Halloween addict here — my house is so decorated it raises a lot of eyebrows, and a couple of friends manage to avoid coming around this time of year. I suspect that they suspect I have ghoulies and ghosties in my attic. )

Really good insights on spoilers and anticipation and communication, as well. Thank you all.

nightwulf.1986:

On the subject of telling people what’s not being worked on: Super Adventure Box. There goes the hope of telling people that something isn’t being worked on in an exploding cloud of pixellated glory.

But you know we have said, officially, that SAB will return in the future, right? I don’t know that everyone understood that, but yes, it’ll be back. I honestly and truly don’t know when — and even more honestly, I don’t know if the return has been scheduled. However, I heard the “it will be back” from Colin, and I pretty much rely on that guy for knowing what’s what.

Addendum to above: That book I used as an “example” sounded dangerously close to a trashy romance novel. Just wanted to add — lest I lose some credibility with y’all-- that’s decidedly not my genre of choice.

Some of you pointed to the Season 2 image and said it wasn’t enough to excite you about the season. Some said we should use “teasers.” But isn’t that image precisely that? A teaser?

Ok, let’s talk about this on a personal level. Share your thoughts or desires, not what you gauge to be the thoughts or wishes of the whole community.

I’ll start:

I love books. But I never read the slipcover or the back of the book. Why? Because usually it says too bloomin’ much! I don’t want to read something like, “Ingrid takes a vacation in Crete and meets a mysterious stranger who isn’t all he seems to be, which she discovers when checking the lining of his suitcase and finding four passports in four different names all containing (insert imagined gasp here) her new lover’s photograph! What will Ingrid do? What will she do?”

Well, I’d have to read 100 pages to catch up with the whole “phony passport” thing, but during those 100 pages, I’m thinking, “So when is she finding out that Pierre is a scoundrel?” And everything is colored by what I know, and the whole story-telling experience is diminished.

Oh, and I don’t even want to go into the whole “I saw a trailer at a movie, and every good joke and/or pivotal scene in the movie was telegraphed in the trailer.” That’s not good teaser-ing — that’s giving away the store!

A teaser has to be carefully devised — for a book, a movie, a game. I find the portal and the date to be enticing. Others here do as well. It’s ok — your mileage may vary. But I don’t think we (as devs) want to go the way of TMI for upcoming content because that takes away the joy of discovery and the sense of wonder that everyone will experience as they play the new episode.

Again, just a personal opinion, but as you can see, something I have thought about quite a bit!

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

Also Gaile, can we please get the forum’s Search function fixed? It’s been broken for nearly 2 years. I know there’s been heaps of topics on this, but the sad irony is that they get lost in the forums and never acted upon.

Thanks for communicating.

I’m not discounting your other comments, and thanks for them. But I have to quote that bit ^ and respond: Yes, Yes, and Yes again! By all that Dwayna holds holy, I truly wish we could get a functional search engine!

It’s no secret that the forum software has some noticeable issues. We don’t have the ability to fix Search, just as we cannot address a few other things we’d like to tackle. I’m really sorry that it can be difficult to efficiently use the forum. Quite honestly, I’m absolutely delighted when I see someone was able to find links to old threads and provide them in current thread. In fact, I often find myself wondering "How long did it take that poor forum member to find those links? )

This is something we’re looking into, and there may be a couple of ways we can address it, even as we examine both short-term and long-term solutions.

I think this post may be a valuable read: Mike O’Brien on Communication.

I take on board some well-expressed comments here. Quite honestly, I’m not sure how it would work to say “Yes, we’re aware of XYZ.” Those who say “We just want to know you’re aware” are terrific. But we all know that there are others for whom that wouldn’t be satisfactory. “We want to know you’re aware and we want to know what you’re going to do about it” can even become "We want to know you’re aware, we want to know what you’re going to do about it or [insert something here, from “I’m taking a break” to “I’ll never buy another gem,” to “I’m encouraging my entire gazillion-member guild to jump to Game Z].”

Please understand I’m not dismissing the desire for the first level of info, not at all! But can you see how the outcome can be unpredictable and how, no matter the question or request, there is no perfect answer? Further, can you see how “We’re aware of this and we plan to [whatever]” can become “Ok, you said you were aware of it three days ago, where’s the fix?”

I’m sort of writing to think, but I’d like to understand what truly reaches the point of “I’d like more info, but I’m satisfied with what you’ve been able to tell us right now.” Can you give me a few examples, where players would really like to know everything, but where there is a level of disclosure that meets the basic info request?

I think a few people may have missed this thread, and it includes insights directly from ArenaNet President (and founder) Mike O’Brien on how we communicate with players. So I’m bumping the thread to the front of the forum so that everyone can get a view of how we feel as a company about communication. Communication is important to us. I think Mike expressed the reasons behind our practices very clearly, and I invite you to give the first post a read.

Since Mike posted this, ArenaNet has made additional substantial changes, including the creation of a brand new Forum Communications Team. None of our changes — both announced and unannounced — will result in overnight changes. But some of you have noticed that more red-flagged posts are appearing.

That will increase in the future.

And really, I think that says it all. Thank you for reading this and for being part of our forum family.

Elsdragon.5109:

Since there’s a distinction between soul-bound items and account-bound items already in place, I doubt they would make soul-bound transferable between characters in the same account (since that’s what account-bound items are).

Correct. There are several types of items, and the configuration of each item is made as a conscious decision. So it doesn’t seem likely that that the request would be fulfilled, so that soul bound items — things that are tied to the soul of a single character — would become something that could be shared across all characters. That’s not to say it could not happen, but as a general concept, it seems highly unlikely.

Oh no worries, we have not forgotten you!

We’re waiting for our partners to provide us with a full list of all winners before we send out the rewards. I’m not sure if that list has been caught in limbo, but Blu can speak with our rep and we’ll get this sorted. It’s only been a few days, so we ask you to please allow a bit more time for the lists to be provided, reviewed, verified, and then fulfilled. Thanks for understanding.

I am glad that this appears to be heading in the direction of a resolution for all concerned. The best message that I can give you is that these issues are seldom simple, and that posting on a public forum with incomplete information isn’t productive. Nor is using verbiage that could be construed as inflammatory, such as “I’ve been defrauded” when, in the end, that is not at all what happened.

I ask that you continue to discuss with Customer Support rather than making this a forum issue, for truly no one in the forums can help you with such personal matters. Thank you for understanding.

We have no objections to this, as long as both accounts are used by you and you’re not, say, botting with the one. Clearly, account sharing is a really bad idea, and botting is strictly prohibited and will bring the wrath of Dhuum down upon your head. Well, figuratively speaking, anyway. I don’t sense you’re intending either of those things, though, and a lot of players have a secondary account they use legitimately in order to send benefits to their main.

Guhracie.3419:

It’s almost as if there are many different people, with many different opinions, who play this game. Imagine that!

So true, and thanks for a good laugh.

Heibi.4251:

It’s just like when you bid on something from EBay. If you get outbid, you don’t get the item. Simple as that. Try complaining at a real auction, you’ll be laughed out of the building. Either buy the item outright or live with the “technically” real world style of bidding on items in GW2.

As I was reading the thread, that’s what I was thinking, too, that although not perfect, you could draw an analogy from eBay. On eBay, there might be a set “minimum raise” of $1.00, but the actual raise can end up being just one penny, based on the other person’s top bid. Like others in this thread, I don’t think that the 1 copper raise is an issue, but I will ask the team — who clearly is more expert on this subject — if they have anything to add on the subject.

Back now. I heard from our Director of Sales, North America, and then realized I hadn’t asked your location, SpudBob! But assuming you’re in North America, Amazon has ordered gem cards and I believe they’re replenishing as quickly as they can. It’s a popular item, as you can see from azzy’s post, but I feel sure they’ll keep them on offer.

Are you guys posting in an active thread in the Tech Support forum? Or submitting a ticket? I think the team is gathering info on this, so feel free to provide the requested info if you want to do so. It could help solve any problems over which we have control. (I mean, we can’t solve issues with an ISP or an Internet backbone problem — the stuff that is outside our data center, somewhere between you and us — but with data from players, we’ve nailed other latency issues in the past.)

Thanks for giving us some good food for thought. Please continue to add your suggestions and input — we’re listening.

I really think Excel does the trick. To add the fun factor, consider using colored tabs! (Just kidding! )

Thanks for putting up those helpful links, Wanze!

I think posting in the Ranger forum would get you a bunch of helpful input!

I tend to agree with the forum members here: You’d need a lot of data to make such a conclusion with any level of accuracy.

I’ve seen interesting posts from players (on the forums or wiki) who want to try gathering that sort of info. You’re welcome to try to get the depth of details you need from a group of players (the larger the better, of course). But given the variable nature of drops, I’d recommend not drawing a conclusion from anecdotal evidence.

Edit:

Umm… this may say it better:

Marndeis.7815:

Your Sample size is insignificant. Its just bad luck.

:)

I don’t know if it’s coming, and it’s probably a really late request for this year’s Halloween event. I do see your point, though. I’d be devastated if I lost my hats! (Old GW players positively cherish their headgear after all!)

If it doesn’t come to pass for this event, why not make a suggestion post after the event, with [Suggestion] in the title? It can’t hurt to get your thoughts on the radar, eh?

First, umm… Nova, are we doing your homework for you? Ok, ok, you used “gibber-gabber” so I may have to look the other way.

Second, thanks to those of you who are joining in. I admit your jokes are funny, but really, this could be a pretty interesting exercise.

That’s game log-in situation sis frustrating, and I’m sorry that happening. Have you guys reported this to CS via a ticket? I’m going to ask them tomorrow (it’s after hours now) if they’re aware of this, but in the meantime, it looks like you could try ignoring the grayed-out look and hitting log-in because it may have remembered the p/w despite how it appears.

As for the forum log-in, I feel that pain. I actually wrote the team to tell them I felt like I was in a endless circle — even when I bloomin’ authorized! — but it appears my problem was related to being an employee who was logging in from outside our office network. In your case, it seems very odd that you get an e-mail and have to rush to approve or it expires!

Can you guys time that for us? Like how long was it before the authentication authorization expired? One minute? Three minutes? Ten or more? I think I will talk to our web team (because I think this is a web thing) if you’re finding that you have to scramble to log into the forums. We want you here, not outside knocking on the door!

Feel free to post constructive comments in an existing thread on the topic. This one is a redundancy of many other existing topics on the forums.