Guild Wars 2

Most of what made GW1 great is missing from GW2.

GW2’s storylines are boring, trite and a waste of time (click next as fast as possible). I only do them to get the text off the upper right corner of my screen. GW1 had great stories that were fun to play through and follow.

GW2’s weapons skill system is lame. It is simplistic, without any room for experimentation. GW1’s skills were fun to experiment with and gave you another reason to do content looking for the best skills.

GW2’s WvW has potential but it is sadly lacking in replayabitlity. It gets boring fast.

GW2 does have some cool new features but for the most part it has very little replay value because it just isn’t as fun as GW1 was. And the gear grind they introduced with FOTM is a huge mistake. Grinding dungeons is the lamest gameplay mechanic ever invented.

ASB.4295:

As long as they can keep the majority of players happy with better gear to work for, they can take all the time they need with new features. It gave them some much needed breathing room.

The majority of the playerbase left.

Grinding the same dungeons over and over doesn’t do it for most players. Running after the gear carrot is boring. If ANET can’t come up with better gameplay than that then this game is toast.

Rukia.4802:

defrule.7236:

At some point I would like to see MMOs simply have one server.

Elder Scrolls online is going to do it. They call it a mega server.

From what I understand it’s essentially a ton of overflows.

http://www.gamersbook.com/community/groups/elder-scrolls-online/blog/elder-scrolls-online-mega-server/

It’s one of those obvious solutions that should have been in the industry from day one. The fact that ANET has the tech to do it and still hangs on to the old “server community” dinosaur, doesn’t bode well for the future of Guild Wars.

Truearrow.3527:

I agree, I have 2 accounts, 1 account is on a low-pop PVE server and another on a server with quite high WvW activity, both have dead PVE zones. it’s a litttle depressing to see zones that Anet put so much work into to make amazing like Fields of Ruin and Bloodtide Coast completely empty. A simple solution would be to allow us to elect to go to overflow.

History has shown us that gaming devs go out of their way to avoid the simple solution that works. But they will instead drive a game into the grave while pushing their pet project that nobody cares about.

/signed

My guild left the upper tier servers to get away from the WvW zerg and that was a huge success. WvW is great now. But the PvE suffered. Most zones are empty, especially the lower level and mid tier zones. Events can’t be done and nothing feels epic like it did when the game was released.

PvE is boring now because nobody is around. The WvW is good but that isn’t enough.

ANET has the tech in place to link all the pve zones, they should do it immediately.

I do the jumping puzzles because I enjoy them, not for the loot. Nobody does in fact, because they never drop anything of worth. Almost all chests are worthless and that is the point (for those of you too obtuse to figure it out without cue cards).

Did the steamrock jp the first day and found the second chest behind the champ while I was up on that island. Sneaking behind the champ was obvious and I looted the worthless junk that came from that chest.

It’s become a standard joke amongst my friends at how bad chest loot is in this game. But having a chest drop two white items is just wrong on every level and everyone knows that. So again the point is –
- chest loot itemization needs to be redone.

In fact, nobody does champs or any of the interesting out of the way encounters because the vast majority of players ignore the content when chests consistantly drop crap loot. I do the ones I can solo because I enjoy the challenge. I can even solo some champs if I’m bored enough, but I know ahead of time the loot will suck. Most players want more tangible rewards for their time and I don’t blame them.

I’ve done most of the jumping puzzles already, only went back to this one because I skipped it when leveling. I expected the chest loot to be crapola but getting two whites was a new low.

Again, chests should never drop white loot… ever. And chests in generals are a joke.

Just finished the “Only Zuhl” jumping puzzle, the one where the lava hurts. There is a Giant Destroyer Troll at the end you have to kill to get the chest.

Kited the Troll around for 15 minutes while avoiding his lava attacks, he has a ton of hp. But he died and I eagerly awaited opening the chest for my ubah reward..

Two WHITE items… LOL.

I am ecstatic. That was the bestest reward ever. I am so excited that I finally won the game. Now I can go do something else. I think ALL hard earned chests should have only white items in them. You would keep so many people playing that way. They love white items after busting their tail for such a fine reward…

Hadn’t logged in about a week before today. After opening that chest I remembered why..

Laters.

Valtameri.2075:

Grim West.3194:

They should just do away with servers for PvE content and have everyone in overflow servers. Servers are only necessary for WvW.

Make 10 (or whatever is needed) overflow servers for PvE and allow players to que up to whichever one they want. This way there would always be at least one full server for every zone. If players want to be in an empty zone then give them that choice.

They can keep people from exploiting nodes / etc like they did in the new Lost Shores zone.

This seems like an obvious solution that they should have thought of long before launch. Empty zones are the bane of all server based mmo’s. GW2 has the tech already to fix that industry problem, why did they drop the ball so badly?

It would be a start, but wouldn’t totally solve the problem, problems are FoTM and that there really isn’t any reasons for people to hang out in older zones once they have completed it.

Yeah, that’s true for lvl 80’s. But for players leveling up for the first time, or alts, the lack of players in low level zones is a huge issue. And also a total waste of the dev time spent creating content for those zones.

Giving lvl 80’s a reason to play in lower level zones is a tougher fix. They have addressed that somewhat with gear drops but it isn’t enough. One issue is that harvesting mats in lower levels zones is pointless unless you are willing to give up valuable bag space to cart around all the different tools. Nobody wants to do that.

Putting high level mobs in low level zones would help some but not much. Champs and other high level mobs rarely drop anything of use in any zone (another problem with GW2 that needs fixing).

But first things first. Give up separate servers for PvE and put everyone in overflow servers with the option to join whichever overflow the player wants. This would also solve the guest issue which is STILL not in the game.

They should just do away with servers for PvE content and have everyone in overflow servers. Servers are only necessary for WvW.

Make 10 (or whatever is needed) overflow servers for PvE and allow players to que up to whichever one they want. This way there would always be at least one full server for every zone. If players want to be in an empty zone then give them that choice.

They can keep people from exploiting nodes / etc like they did in the new Lost Shores zone.

This seems like an obvious solution that they should have thought of long before launch. Empty zones are the bane of all server based mmo’s. GW2 has the tech already to fix that industry wide problem, why did they drop the ball so badly?

Nobody has attacked our mob in a long time. It just sits there. Most people left the instance. We have better things to do than fight bugged out events.

Most people just gave up in our overflow.. mob keeps resetting. What a waste of time.

Exploiters will not be a factor any more than they are now, if people are allowed to join overflow maps where others are playing. Your argument against this is just not valid.

Taking your reasoning to it’s logical conclusion would just mean putting everyone alone in an instance, much like it was in GW1. GW2 was designed to get people to play TOGETHER and away from the massive instancing that forced solo play in GW1. And btw, solo instancing didn’t stop exploiting in GW1 either.

Much of GW2’s best content requires a huge amount of players to trigger the events. But all server based mmo’s eventually have empty mid tier zones where most content is unused, and therefore wasted dev time. GW2 has an edge though, since they already have the overflow map designed into the game. They should take advantage of it to help negate the empty mid tier zone issue that plagues all server based mmos.

By allowing players to join a overflow map, where players from other servers can also meet up, GW2 will make the most of the dev time they have spent. And it allows players to have more fun.

Think of this as a better version of the x-server lfg tool. Something that is very popular in other games, and was also created to help negate the negative effects of low pop servers.

Failname.5907:

If they added overflow servers for that, the trading post would be empty in weeks or even days
overlow servers give exploiters all they need to exploit the ….. out of the game..

Lol, what are you talking about? Exploiters will exploit, no matter what the situation. And the trader is across all servers. So overflow servers will not effect it in any way.

Overflow maps for pve (keep WvW the way it is) would be the ideal situation long term for GW2. Many pve players will get bored when the population declines across all servers and all mid tier zones are ghostlands, even on high pop servers. Giving pve players an option to join others in an overflow map would be fun for everyone.

Chamone.6890:

Just join a high pop server that sucks at WvW. The maps will almost always be empty so you will have no problem getting in

No. That is not a good option. We already tried that.

It is actually worse than what is happening now. WvW on full servers means zerg vs zerg. And a full server with a bad WvW playerbase still will field enough players to stay in the higher tiers where too much zerg action happens and not enough small group.

My suggestion will also help the game down the line when fewer people are playing on all servers.

My guild recently moved to a low pop server to get away from the WvW queues and the zergs. That was a success, WvW is much better for us now.

But unfortunately, the pve has suffered. Mid tier zones are empty and events are almost impossible to do solo. Some events never trigger and others just sit in the map untouched because no one is around to do them. Even the events that are possible are small without the epic feel that happened when the game was released.

What I suggest is an option for pve players to chose a x-server overflow map to do pve content in if the zone they are in is empty. Then many more people would be around to play with and the epic events could get triggered.

GW2 PvE is a lot more fun when other players are around to play with. Some of my guildmates do not like WvW much and they want to transfer back to a full server where there are more people in the pve zones. If players had the option of chosing x-server overflow maps where people from other low pop servers could go then everyone could experience the content in it’s best light. This would encourage more guilds to leave the high pop servers and spread the population around, which would also be great for WvW competition.

Will they be back next Halloween?

Anet mistakenly banned my account for 10 days and didn’t give it back untill Halloween morning. ArenaNet’s mistake effectively kept me out of the event. I was still able to complete the jumping puzzle and a couple other minor things but the achievements were not possible. And I missed most of the events and the dungeon.

Missing out on those things is not the end of the world, but it would be cool if they came back again next year. A lot of people could not participate for any number of reasons (Sandy comes to mind) who would like a chance at it again next Halloween.

Well it took 10 days but they finally restored my account. This was an extremely frustrating experience, and I was really, really pissed off at first. That faded to indifference a few days ago. Not sure I want to even play anymore.

Anyways, good luck everyone. Hope you get your accounts back.

Grim

Yeah Cerebus, seen a ton of bots in the areas I was playing too. On my main and low level alts. Reported them the first few times but after a while just ignored them and played the game. Probably even rezzed a few, I rez everyone I can, I don’t ask if they are a bot.

Don’t even understand the gold selling thing. If I really needed gold then I would just buy some gems and convert them using the trader. That’s what it is for and it’s cheap. It’s not worth my time to bother with bots or gold sellers.

10 days and still waiting..
121021-001711

Thanks for your reponse Gaile, it is the only communication I have recieved though. 10 days now and nothing else..

I have pretty much given up on ArenaNet. Since I have never done anything in any game to warrant this kind of treatment, this incident has shown me that your company doesn’t deserve my business or my time. I don’t know what software you are using to flag accounts but it is seriously substandard garbage if it thinks any action I did was even remotely connected to gold selling.

All it would take is for you to check my emails. Since I hardly ever sent or recieved any it should take you all of two seconds to realize your mistake. Or, if you flagged me for collecting mats then check how many alts I have. I am working on all the crafting professions, so I collect as many mats as I can. I have never sent any out though, ever.

And since I rarely have more than a couple gold on all of my toons combined it doesn’t make sense why you banned me. The only time I ever sent any silver out was as a tip for my guildee to make me an orange rifle. I sent him the mats and 50 silver. If that deserves a ban then I give up.

121021-001711

getzzzonked, if you think I look guilty because I’m mad at being treated poorly, then you need to get new glasses.

Your way of dealing with thugs is beneath me or anyone with self respect.

I was perfectly willing to have a civil conversation with ArenaNet but they treated me as guilty first, and then ignored me. You get what you give, and ArenaNet has given me nothing but ill treatment.

121021-001711

Guild Wars 1 and 2 are great games, maybe my favorite mmo’s. But their customer support is by far the worst in the business.

And it is because of their customer support that I may never do business with ArenaNet again.

8 days without any response is unacceptable. And I refuse to treat people with respect who do not respect me. They deserve my ire.

I was a loyal customer of ArenaNet’s at one time. I convinced a lot of people to play this game. I even run a small guild. But this whole situation has soured my attitude towards them. I will not be recommending this game or any other ArenaNet game to my friends. Why would I? Taking a customer’s money and then ignoring them is theft. And I don’t deal with thieves.

121021-001711

8 days since put in my support ticket.

It is bad enough to be wrongly accused of something I would never do, but to then ignore me after having taken my money reeks of underhanded shenanigans by ArenaNet.

I bought the game, and even paid for an extra character slot. I have never bought or sold gold in any mmo, and I’ve played a ton of them. Never been suspended, banned or even reprimanded in any mmo or game. The fact that their system flagged my account for doing something that is against everything I care about just shows how pathetic ArenaNet is. This stinks of a cheap way to steal money from us.

If you don’t fix this mistake of yours and you still think I am EVER going to give ArenaNet money again after this fiasco then you are the dumbest people on earth.

Fix your mistake.

121021-001711

Post the ticket number in this thread. That may help you get a response. I haven’t seen any proof that it makes any difference, but it can’t hurt.

One thing that “supposedly” helps is to post your support ticket number. I have yet to see any proof that that makes any difference, since after 6 days I have yet to get any response. But that is one of ArenaNet’s byzantine processes that they tout will help us to obtain a resolution (some time in the far future after our grandchildren have died from old age).

121021-001711

Gaile, I understand ArenaNet’s need to deal with botters and gold sellers. But your “tiny percentage” is still a huge amount of players wrongfully banned. Being wrongfully banned is bad enough, but to add insult to injury is the fact that it takes so much time and effort to get ArenaNet to acknowledge their mistake.

After 5 days I still have never recieved any kind of response or explanation for why my account was banned. The gold selling notice on my log in screen is the only thing I have to go by.

So not only am I angry that you all banned me for something I have never done and never would, but ArenaNet’s customer support is so sadly lacking that we are treated as if we don’t exist. So of course we are angry, and rightfully so. How would you feel if you were treated as shabbily as we have been, for something you did not do?

121021-001711

All I can say is keep trying, it might be tough to get in this weekend though. Eventually you will get in.

But maybe you will enjoy your stay on Ehmry Bay. That is where my guild moved to. We wanted to get away from the WvW queues and zergs on the top tier servers.

Good luck.

I can understand ArenaNet making mistakes, it happens. What I don’t understand is their incredibly byzantine customer support process. The way they treat honest customers is beyond unprofessional.

It has been 5 days since I sent in my ticket and have never once recieved any response from them for this issue. Gaile did mention that my ticket is in some sort of queue in the 3 days and older thread. Other than that I have been totally ignored. It is very frustrating and has totally changed my opinion of ArenaNet.

I use to think ArenaNet was one of the few good gaming companies, that isn’t the case anymore.

121021-001711

Try moving during off peak hours, you should be able to get in. Early morning is usually a good time to try.

If you play WvW you can expect longer queues though.

Beyonce, I’ve never used texmod or anything else. Nor have I done anything to be banned for.

ANET has some sort of detection system that is banning too many honest players. They have admitted the problem in other threads. That wouldn’t be such a big deal if their customer service was responsive. In any other gaming company, problems are dealt with in a timely manner. That is not true with ArenaNet.

ref no. 121021-001711

Mexay, yep I posted in three days and waiting thread. Didn’t help.

4 days, no reply, no action.

Account banned for gold sales, which is absolute rubbish. Get a clue ArenaNet, YOU ARE WRONG. Your inaction amounts to theft. I paid to play, and I play by the rules. You are not.

121021-001711

I’m in the exact same situation. Never been banned before, and have never have done anything in any game to warrant a ban or suspension.

Get ready for a long wait without any response or indication that they even care. It has been 5 days since my ban, 4 since I put in a ticket and I haven’t even received a single response from these “professionals”.

ArenaNet makes good games but their customer support is by far the worst in the business. The whole situation has seriously degraded my respect for them. This is not the way you treat your paying customers, in any business.

ref no. 121021-001711

3 days, no reply, no action.

ref no. 121021-001711

I’ve been playing mmos since 1999 in EQ, and have played a ton of them since.
Never bought or sold gold in any game.
Never botted or ever done anything that was considered an exploit in any game.
Never been reprimanded, suspended or had my account terminated in any game.
I go out of my way to play games the way they are meant to be played and just have fun.

Never had more than 4 or 5 gold on my account (not sure of the exact amount, I don’t care about gold). Spent most of my silver buying matts off the trader to level crafting… which I almost never use anyways.

If I were going to buy gold I would just do it from ANET, that’s what the trader is for. But I don’t because there really isn’t much use for it if you JUST PLAY THE GAME.

ANET’s customer service is horrible. I have never been treated so badly by any gaming company. This whole experience has made me question why I should do business with a company who is so arbitrary and incompetent.

How long does it take to resolve this issue?

This is BS, I run a small guild who just transferred to another server. Trying to communicate with players who haven’t logged on in a couple of days is almost impossible.

And what the hell is wrong with your game? You must have some really bad algorithms to have them think I in any way bought or sold gold. For one I have never bought or sold gold in my life and never will. For another I haven’t ever had more than a couple gold all together on all of my toons.

Even worse, because I have been so busy in rl lately, I have only logged in to talk to other guild members for the last week. Haven’t killed any mobs, done any WvW or crafted. ONLY guild management duties.

You people really need to get your stuff together. This is extremely unprofessional on your part.

Our small guild was forced to leave ET because we just went to WvW and nobody was left on ET to fight the zerg.

We lost all of our influence because of this BS. We moved to a low tier server this time to try and get away from the zergs but losing all the influence really sucks. Small guilds get shafted by this free transfer lemming BS in a huge way.

Yep, woke up this morning to the same thing.

I have never bought or sold gold in my life. And I doubt have have more than 1 gold if you add up all my toon’s silver.

Something is very wrong with ANET’s security setup.

Dware, it would be very easy to grief players in WvW if names were shown. And since it happens all the time in other games then it should be obvious to you that it would happen in GW2.

Again, think of it from a business point of view. Try to encourage PvE players to join PvP. Ask them the reasons why they don’t. PvE players are by far the biggest spenders of money in mmo’s. If you alienate them then you lose a huge portion of potential revenue.

GW2 cost a fortune to make, they have to get their investment back. Making player toon’s names anonymous is the first and easiest thing to do to encourage PvE players to PvP. If you can’t understand that basic fact then I don’t know what else there is to say.

Griefing isn’t just about talking to another player. Continually camping them because they are an easy kill is also griefing. That is actually more important to casuals then someone sending them a random tell. Tells can be ignored.

Just because you didn’t see it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

And this isn’t about you or the minority of players that played DAOC. This is about the millions of players that don’t generally PvP and ANET is trying to encourage to give it a try. PvE players have a whole set of reasons why they don’t like PvP. Griefing is on the top of the list.

It’s a business decision. Try to understand that and then you’ll understand why keeping names anonymous is important.

And the players that do care about competition have already moved to servers where they can find it. There just are not enough of those type of players to tip the scales on the lower tiers.

ANET’s design favors the Lemmings, and Lemmings don’t care about competition.

It’s to protect players from being griefed and to encourage casuals to join in PvP.

Casual players who are not as skillful as others would be targeted and continually harrassed untill they stopped joining WvW if their names were known. And it would lead to some frustrated players leaving the game for good. That is bad for business.

ANET is trying to encourage everyone of every skill level to join PvP and have fun.

mulch.2586:

Grim West.3194:

mulch.2586:

tarnin.1690:

mulch.2586:

The bottom three tiers have competitive match-ups this week. The other tiers don’t.

The ability to zerg, the orb buffs, the queue system — all of that is the same mechanic for all the tiers.

So if you’re gonna blame a game-design element for “ruining” the wvw part of the game, you have to be able to explain why it’s not affecting the bottom 9 servers.

but it is, look at yaks. massive server transfer to SoR blew this entire bracket out for the week. so bad that SoR is moving up two brackets. keep smashing your head in the sand though, when you pop up to see the zerg being a max of 10 people you will can look back at threads like this to explain where everyone went.

So why haven’t server transfers affected the bottom 9 teams that remain competitive all week? With instant transfers, wouldn’t you predict that WvW fans in non-competitive tiers would have jumped down and joined the fray there?

I’m not saying that Yaks wasn’t adversely affected by losing their good players to transfers or whatever, just that transfers alone can’t explain why 3/8 had good matches this week and 5/8 had blow-outs.

Lol, of course it does. The servers that got transfers won, the servers that lost players lost the match.

Most transfers are by band wagon players to winning servers. The few players that actually care about competition are a very minor number compared to the band wagon transfers.

Yes, I see that makes a story that can justify 5/8 of the tiers.
But why didn’t server transfers adversely affect those other 3 tiers?

/boggle

Lemmings don’t transfer to the lower tiers.

mulch.2586:

tarnin.1690:

mulch.2586:

The bottom three tiers have competitive match-ups this week. The other tiers don’t.

The ability to zerg, the orb buffs, the queue system — all of that is the same mechanic for all the tiers.

So if you’re gonna blame a game-design element for “ruining” the wvw part of the game, you have to be able to explain why it’s not affecting the bottom 9 servers.

but it is, look at yaks. massive server transfer to SoR blew this entire bracket out for the week. so bad that SoR is moving up two brackets. keep smashing your head in the sand though, when you pop up to see the zerg being a max of 10 people you will can look back at threads like this to explain where everyone went.

So why haven’t server transfers affected the bottom 9 teams that remain competitive all week? With instant transfers, wouldn’t you predict that WvW fans in non-competitive tiers would have jumped down and joined the fray there?

I’m not saying that Yaks wasn’t adversely affected by losing their good players to transfers or whatever, just that transfers alone can’t explain why 3/8 had good matches this week and 5/8 had blow-outs.

Lol, of course it does. The servers that got transfers won, the servers that lost players lost the match.

Most transfers are by band wagon players to winning servers. The few players that actually care about competition are a very minor number compared to the band wagon transfers.

WvW is all about the lemmings.

WvW will continue to be a joke until ANET addresses the band wagon free transfer issue and the night capping issue.

The maps are also very poorly designed and favor mind numbingly boring zerg tactics.

WvW is a failure. It was fun at first but it doesn’t have any long term playablity in it’s current state.

Too much zerg, not enough small group action.

WvW needs some serious redesign. Larger maps with more objectives spread out with plenty of open area would help. Give small groups a reason and place to exist.

As it stands now the only place for small groups to operate is in the north east portion of borderlands between the keep and supply camp. Occasional forays to the the other supply camps can happen but the zerg tends to be too close for small groups to be effective for long.

kidbs.8920:

The sad fact is that the server with the most 24/7 coverage will win every week regardless of strategy. The best that you can hope for is a good fight and to have fun while you are on.

QFT

WvW is a joke and will be until ANET comes up with a solution to the free transfer band wagon issue.

Gratz IoJ. Everyone should have their turn in the sun.

But remember, ET destroyed tier 2 a couple of times already. Do really think IoJ suddenly got better and ET forgot how to play? Of course not. All that happened is what has been happening since day one…. free transfers of band wagon players.

Skill has nothing to do with wins in WvW, only the largest zerg and 24/7 coverage. If tommorrow the band wagon choses another server then IoJ will be just like they were before.

WvW will continue to be a joke until ANET fixes the free transfer situation.

WvW is broken.

The Devs need to acknowledge this and explain what they are doing to fix it.

Isle of Janthir owns almost everything and probably will for the rest of the week.

Pretty much. It would be good if ANET explained why they have messed up WvW so badly.