Guild Wars 2

yanipheonu.5798:

Do we really believe this would have somehow made the game cheaper?

It’s all about perception. The mistake was simply saying that it was included when it should have been packaged as a different bundle and at a higher price. Relatively, the expansion would have been cheaper and people could only complain about the perceived lack of content. Just a few weeks ago, the base game was only $10.

They shouldn’t have included the base game for free. They should have sold it at the cost of an extra $10, so $49.99 for the expansion, $59.99 for the bundle. It would have changed a few people’s views who are currently stuck on the idea of HoT being the core game + HoT rather than HoT + the core game for $0. Giving away the base game for free is also a huge slap in the face after just putting the base game on sale.

The other problem however is that HoT has so far been shown off to be rather small and not worth the price tag of a full expansion. With that full price tag however, I can only assume that HoT is much larger than what they’ve shown.

Khristophoros.7194:

I’m willing to drop my life savings of in-game gold

If they did that, the exchange rate would spike to a point you wouldn’t be able to realistically afford it. If you really want to buy the expansion with gold however, you can. Simply become a gold seller. You can even sell to them.

ArenaNet made the mistake of not dumbing it down. They should remove the “(includes Guild Wars 2 core game)” part and make a new $59.99 edition for that.

Puck.9612:

The price was 50 for GW1 expansions because they were stand alone games that included character slots…. This is just a rip off.

The GW1 campaigns were priced at $59.99, which is the standard for new games. The campaigns were not considered to be expansions, but standalone games. EotN was the only actual expansion and priced at $34.99. $49.99 is the standard price for an expansion.

I See No Tomorrow.7302:

I’m pretty sure GW: Eye of the North was a lot cheaper than $50. HoT being this price if you already own the base game is just silly.

EotN was $34.99, which was likely chosen due to its smaller size. I figured they would do the same with HoT. Whether HoT actually offers the amount of content you would traditionally expect out of a full expansion is another question. Either ArenaNet’s trying to pull something, or HoT has a lot, and I mean a lot more content than they’ve hinted at. Guild halls for example take up an entire zone and even features dueling, though unfortunately, all that content is locked behind guilds.

$49.99 is the standard price for a full expansion. For comparison, GW2’s original price was $59.99 and the deluxe was $79.99. Whether HoT is actually worth the price of a full expansion is another question.

After the $10 sales, I figured this would happen. GW2 by itself is likely no longer sold, it’s simply included with HoT for free. You don’t have a choice.

They announced pre-purchasing (buy.guildwars2.com), but no release date. ~3 months from now is likely.

If you’re worried about ascended getting more powerful, that was actually the original design. If you look back to the AMA at the time, they hinted that they would use existing tiers and infusions to increase your power. When they added infusions with stats, that was just the beginning. Nothing’s stopping them from going all the way and releasing ascended tier runes, sigils and infusions, then new tiers in expansions. They haven’t touched on that since then however.

They don’t want you cheating in the new HoT maps, which are designed to make use of the vertical space

Beldin.5498:

Nope .. the only non T6 nodes that have DR is mithril. I quite harvest a lot T3 and T4
mats with multiple chars on multiple IPs and they have never dissapeared.

It’s per character. Also note that when I said “area” I’m not referring to the entire map. I’m not sure how big an area actually is, but I’d guess it’s based on this. You’re basically only allowed to gather X amount of Y within an area every ~hour.

You can do the same thing with farms. Gather only some of them then hop instances. You’ll see all the nodes, but only allowed to gather however many that originally remained, then they’ll all vanish.

Acinonyx Rex.8609:

That’s pretty much what we will have but overpowered skills should be replaced with map gated content.

Unless you want to assume that the content is balanced around having the combat related masteries, which makes them content gates, they are basically the equivalent of GW1’s PvE-only skills. The difference is that they’re passive and further limited to specific PvE areas. The ability to simply negate certain mechanics is fairly overpowered, plus you get to deal more and take less damage.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

They did it with magic find so I don’t think you’re giving them enough credit.

That was only for the primary magic find stat combo because it was removed from the game. Celestial was not given that opportunity. People complained then, nothing happened.

Another example is the change to crit damage. They didn’t offer refunds either.

There is no chance that they’ll offer gear swaps. If they implemented a trade-in vendor, you would lose your upgrades. If they handed it like magic find, every item would have to be duplicated into two versions, which is a huge waste. If they were going to do anything, they would simply add a new UI for the stats instead of automatically adding them to gear. The problem with that however is that the more casual audience doesn’t want to bother with it. It would have the same problem as the original traits that used 5 points per trait.

It’s DR. If you harvest too many of the same type of node within an area, all nodes of that type within that area will vanish. You can easily trigger it by hopping instances and gathering the same area over and over.

Pandeh.5248:

Then you need like 60 or so more skill points to unlock the elite spec.

(leveling to 80 is worth 400 points. 465 points are required to unlock everything currently available. Each trait/skill/unlock costs 5 points. ~100 points will be required for the elite specialization)

65 points is only 13 unlocks. Simply skip one of the trait lines.

ArenaNet is simply trying to raise the level cap without actually raising it, but still keeping the benefits. Yes, the 1% will be forced into playing the core part of the game, but that’s also the point. They don’t want you to always be able to fully unlock a new specialization the day it’s released.

For the new elite specialization, expect to have to play through the story a bit before actually gaining access to it. In the future, expect to be required to complete all skill challenges in the new zones to have enough points.

They’re not going to bother creating a temporary workaround. So what if you’re missing a few skills that you probably don’t even use. Would you really want those extra points now just to delay the problem? The new elite specialization will cost another ~100 points.

When it comes to WvW, if they want to support it as its own mode, it needs to fully become its own mode. The simplest solution is to just make it use SPvP’s base. Alternatively, implement a WvW-mode for skill unlocks which uses hero points from WvW instead of PvE. You would be allowed to choose either your PvE or WvW build while in WvW.

Innoruuk Nightedges.7854:

Some of these updates cancel each other out and are purely seasonal, with no regard for going back over years.

GW2 doesn’t work like that. The launcher only downloads files that are required by the live game. It’s why everyone’s Gw2.dat file may be different. Mine for example is 22.3 GB.

If the launcher was actually downloading all the changes since launch, it wouldn’t have been ~300k files, it would have been double that or more.

Try using the -windowed option to force windowed mode. If you’ve played GW2 on it before, you can also try deleting your settings by deleting the folder
%appdata%/Guild Wars 2/ and if it exists, Documents/Guild Wars 2/Local.dat.

If your laptop has multiple GPUs, try disabling all but the dedicated one. Some laptops for example have a dual setup; an integrated one for normal tasks and a dedicated one for 3D. Sometimes the wrong one will get used and cause it to fail.

Milyra.3425:

So the ONLY time GW2 doesn’t work is when it’s on my desktop computer connected to my home internet by any means.

Your computer has multiple network cards that you were able to test? Multiple slots on a single card or multiples cards of the same brand do not count.

Update the firmware on your router or try configuring it and disabling any features that aren’t required for basic operations. There’s basically a bug in the router’s software which is causing it to crash.

Windows 8? There have been cases with bad network drivers that have caused similar problems. Try updating. Some adapter settings have also caused problems with certain cards. Under control panel/network adapters > the adapter’s properties > configuration > advanced, try disabling green/energy efficiency settings.

As a temporary workaround, you could connect your computer to your laptop using a wire, then setup the laptop to share its wireless connection.

You need to put a space after the path:

"C:\...\Gw2.exe" -repair

Try using the -windowed option to force the game to run in a window. Also update your graphics drivers.

"C:\...\Gw2.exe" -windowed

You can also try resetting your settings by deleting the folder %appdata%/Guild Wars 2/ and if it exists, the file Documents/Guild Wars 2/Local.dat

You’ll still be able to obtain “skill points” using the scrolls from bags. They’ll also be adding them in other places to compensate for the change.

The absolute highest price it would be is $49.99 + whatever taxes/etc for the standard edition. You can assume the deluxe is +$10-20 and the ultimate is another +$10-20 (but it’s probably the base game + season 2 + HoT deluxe).

The real price however will likely be between $30 and $40. Pricing should be announced by the end of next week, assuming they want to release this year.

It’s odd how they nerfed Halloween due to the oversupply, then simply let maize balm happen. Unfortunately, Halloween is likely going to get rebalanced again because of it. (for example, the rewards from the Clock Tower were nerfed by half, double that if you count the change to how it reset).

Sujuro.4096:

Will it be like transmutation stones and be 3:1 leaving me with 2 skill points sitting there staring at me awkwardly wondering why they exist and what cruel god abandoned them?

Even if you assume the conversion isn’t 1:1, you wouldn’t have any extras left over because they will still be obtainable.

That is what they do.

Daddicus.6128:

You should not be able to go in, fight a little, leave (whether by dying or not), and still gain full profit.

Which is why contribution needs to be changed.

sorudo.9054:

if i do 95% of the event alone, including champ kills, and die just at the end of the event tagging isn’t gonna help.

What is 95% of the event? Is it a boss event or another type?

If it’s not a boss event, doing 1% of the event is enough. Kill a single mob, turn in a single item, etc, and walk away.

If it’s a boss event however, your credit will reset if you allow the target to reset. For example, if you’re killing a champ but die, your credit is lost the moment that champ begins regenerating health. If someone else was with you however to prevent that, you would still have credit. Sometimes these events have adds you can kill to get and keep credit, but the adds don’t always count.

RoyHarmon.5398:

Why would something else likely be on a different route? If that’s the case, what’s the point of a tool like PingPlotter, if it’s not even showing the same route that GW2 would use?

PingPlotter shows the route you take to the specified IP. That is your route to GW2. I was referring to other services, like how you said you had no problems with Netflix. Netflix isn’t hosted in the same location as GW2, thus you connect to it using a different route.

The internet is basically a network of roads. A hop is whenever the road splits into multiple paths. You don’t always take the same path when travelling to different places, but you may take the same path when travelling to the same place. Blocking one path will not block all of them, however the closer it is to your start point, the more trouble you’ll have.

RoyHarmon.5398:

I did try using a VPN, but it didn’t change anything.

You’ll need to try various VPN servers in an attempt to work around wherever the problem occurs. Ensure that the route through the VPN has sufficiently changed compared to your original one.

If you haven’t already, reset your modem/router and, if possible, try a direct connection.

Mapping IPs to real world locations is only an estimation. The owner can put whatever they want. Since Telia is located in Sweden, that would be their default location for unmapped IPs. If those IPs were actually located in Sweden, the response time would have jumped by ~100ms.

One of the hops on your route is probably the cause. It doesn’t matter if something else works because it’s likely on different route.

You can try using the -clientport 80/443 option, though it likely won’t help. To try a different route, you’d need to use a VPN. Other than that, all you can really do is wait it out or complain to your ISP.

Daddicus.6128:

I’ve been thinking, and I’ll go one step further:

If waypointing really does cause the boss fight to go more easily, then that’s an exploit bug that needs to be fixed. The devs clearly consider waypointing out to be cheating, (they removed the ability to do so in dungeons for that very reason).

Unlike open world content, dungeons do not scale. People were abusing waypoints to death rush bosses.

As a simple fix, they should just make dead players not count towards scaling and also not revivable while in the area of an active event. Even the devs have complained about dead players not waypointing, but the problem is, at the same time, they want the game to be very casual friendly.

What they really need to fix is contribution, but again, that wouldn’t be casual friendly. Why bother participating at all when you can simply do 1% of the event, walk away and get full credit? If contribution was fixed, you would basically be required to do a certain amount of damage compared to the average to get full credit, otherwise you would only get a percentage of the rewards.

Here’s some new data on scaling, though it only further confirms what’s already known:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/38pdks/controlled_event_scaling_test/

cocowoushi.7150:

Then Kas says, “What is that new magic you’re using?” To Rytlock.
While, as a Rev, I had been using the SAME king of magic since the start. Kas SHOULD know about it, especially if I played through LS2 with my Rev.

When Rytlock first exited The Mists, he entered the past which created an alternate universe. This is where new characters will be playing after HoT. History repeats itself and Rytlock once again falls into The Mists during the cleansing. This time however, he exits to our current universe, which causes a distortion and merges the two timelines. You retain the memories of whichever universe you had the strongest ties to.

Time manipulation has limitless possibilities. Make up whatever story you want.

Sylvain Ice.5827:

Now, there’s already an article wondering how on earth Anet is going to fit new Revenants into the world of Tyria, and I’m reasonably confident someone will come up with a response to that part of the question. (Please. Dear gods please.)

When the cleansing failed and Rytlock fell, he entered into The Mists. The Mists is an area that that exists outside of the world, connecting everything together – the future and the past. When Rytlock vanished from the world, he could have wandered for years, when in reality, it could have only been a few minutes. When he managed to escape, he caused a time distortion. From our perspective, he appears back in the world, but in the distortion, he came from the past. Rytlock was always a Revenant.

Considering what The Mists is, I really wouldn’t be surprised.

Sylvain Ice.5827:

Are you telling me that, rather than studying with Trahearne or Marjory, my necromancer is going to wake up on, say, September 30th, grab a few hero points or something, sit down with a mug of coffee and “discover” the Reaper?

I doubt they’d just throw it in. I suspect you’ll have to play through the content to actually unlock it. Instead of having individual stories, I’d expect to see a single generic one featuring them all, or at least an NPC in the world that you would have to train it from.

RabidCoqui.1983:

How did your Mesmer learn his/her Mesmer skills?

Mesmer school growing up.

It really depends on what model ArenaNet is now planning to use/test. Originally they had a 1 month model, then 2 weeks, then it turned into the living story. The living story wasn’t good for marketing because people that aren’t active players don’t care. An expansion however, people notice. Will ArenaNet continue with the 2 week model or try something different? After the expansion is released, I’d expect to see 3 months of nothing, which is generally the time it takes for the novelty to wear off for the average person. At that point, I’d expect to see the living story again, running for roughly a year, broken up into 2 chunks – the end of HoT, the beginning of something new. After that, back to waiting for the next expansion (~2 year cycle).

If HoT releases prior to Halloween, Halloween and Wintersday will likely be the next updates. The normal cycle would resume in late January. What about November however? Bad timing. Maybe some other event, like a WvW tournament or something.

If HoT doesn’t release by late September however, expect to see a November or late January release.

Tommyknocker.6089:

I could back up my old games onto older HDD’s, but once I grow bored of a game I generally don’t want to take the time to find all the needed files for a backup.

“all the needed files”? Simply copy the main folder to a different drive. Don’t even bother uninstalling it.

For games that don’t support moving their location, simply create a directory link (cmd: mklink /D) from the old to the new location. This will make it look like it’s on the original drive, but actually be on the other.

For GW2 specifically, simply move the folder, or just Gw2.dat.

The current lack of content is what people were asking for last year when they were complaining about wanting an expansion. ArenaNet is simply delivering.

There is a story to every event and every zone has a larger, general story, as does some areas within a zone. ArenaNet loves exploration, so if you want to actually know what’s going on, you’ll really need to go out of you way if you want to see everything.

As you may know, an event usually continues on after it’s complete. NPCs rarely vanish like they do in other MMOs, so continue to follow them. They’ll usually continue a dialogue and allow you to interact with them. After a certain amount of time, the event may enter a reset period where the NPCs do something else. When ready, the NPCs may do something else again, at which point the event starts. You basically have to watch an event from its ending to its beginning to its ending again while also interacting with everything. Not everything is marked for you either. What makes it even worse is that sometimes the event splits, where for example you’re tasked to follow an NPC, meanwhile, the NPCs that remained begin a dialogue. Also, don’t forget failing, which sometimes tells another side of the story.

Keep in mind however that the goal was to create a living world and as such, the story is basically always related to daily life.

Hearts are basically the opposite and were designed solely for questers that couldn’t adapt to the game. Like usual, you get your chunk of story upfront and at the end.

Miku.6297:

I really doubt many people have 30+ accounts… if they do, wow that’s a lot of wasted money.

Have you ever spent or planned on spending money on gems? Investing in a new account is far more profitable, and you don’t even have to play it.

Prototypemind.4026:

There are issues with the fights in this game in that the endurance system for dodges really doesn’t fit the attack style of many bosses.

You’re not supposed to always dodge. Sometimes you step out of the way, jump, evade/avoid using a skill or simply take the hit, then heal.

The dragon fight in the grove for example. I remember people complaining about dying a lot and not being able to avoid everything. Jump.

You can easily solo the urban battlegrounds fractal since the NPCs do most of the work. Do it whenever the daily fractal is up for an easy pristine relic.

Although making group content scale would certainly increase its popularity, I doubt they’d do it since it creates more work for them and causes a problem. Why group? Although grouping would likely make the content easier (assuming 1:1 scaling), if good players could be more efficient by soloing it, who would be left looking for a group?

During phase 1’s ice wall, if you’re an elementalist, you should be using a staff, have a frost bow and standing in the middle. Meteor shower + ice storm makes a joke out of everyone using a gun. Healing rain can be used to preemptively cleanse the fear, while cleansing wave (trait) and signet of air can be used to break it. Since the fear is bugged, assume it’ll always happen twice, so never break the first one.

They wouldn’t sell power like this, they would make you apply for it like other trusted positions. If selected, you would have to agree to terms that had real world consequences. You would be required to have a static IP and one that wasn’t linked to a public service (VPN) because a change in IP would remove this privilege from your account. All GM power would be accessed through an external application and every request would require an authentication key to submit. Higher security is required to prevent problems with stolen accounts or unattended sessions.

If something like this was going to happen however, some other MMO would already be doing it. Some MMOs have player forum moderators, but taking away account privileges is far more serious than forum privileges.

The usual solution is to simply crowd source it. After a certain amount of reports from unique individuals not linked to any other submitted reports (like friends, guild, same IP), the reported account is immediately flagged and either looked into with a priority or automatically handled. For example, in cases of botting, automated action would be to require the offender to enter a captcha within a few minutes, otherwise they’re locked to character select.

If you bought the game through buy.guildwars2.com, you can request a refund through support. Doing so will however permanently ban your account. I doubt they offer partial refunds, though in special cases, they have allowed people to apply a new serial key to an existing, but banned, account.

If you buy something off the gem store and it went on sale, I’ve heard of them offering refunds.

E3 is in 2 weeks. They’ll probably hold off until then. At that point, late August would be the absolute earliest with late September being more likely.

If they go for a mostly digital release (no collector’s edition, very limited supply of boxes), they could release within a month of announcement. HoT could for example be nothing more than an account upgrade sold in the gem store or alternatively available just like gem cards (bad idea though).

There really shouldn’t be a cap on guild banks if you’ve been a member of the guild for several months. However, their intention might be to limit stolen accounts, though they’ll be able to steal everything else.

You hitting the limit is a sign. Wait until HoT to see how the precursor collection works out?

StinVec.3621:

People stop playing for weeks and months and then come back all the time – exactly what the B2P model flaunts as something players are able to do. If the stuff is not for sale for the time that these people are back, then it obviously cannot be bought by these players.

It’s just another reason to login every day or at the very least, continue to follow the game.

The idea of people taking breaks simply because it’s a B2P game is actually bad for ArenaNet. Without an active player base, an MMO cannot live. It’s better to have active players than it is to profit.

Fiddlestyx.9714:

Bunny ears are going to sell like hotcakes when they come back.

I doubt they’ll come back for the same reason the school uniform or swimsuits were never added.

NoTrigger.8396:

nexxe.7081:

Just look at Wildstar for example. Hardcore raiding game that is on life support. The majority didn’t want that so they left in droves.

this is bs. timetravel said statistics show that players who entered dungeons or raids in wildstar were more likely to stay.

They also said that ~60% of the player base played solo. WildStar’s ultimate failure was that they only focused on challenging group content.

If someone is AFKing at an event that isn’t in a safe area like a camp, chances are they’re intentionally leeching. It doesn’t matter what the kick timer is set to because they’ll simply use a macro to keep themselves active.

The default timer is oddly long however, which is almost an hour.

Vincent.7452:

Actually, AFK players do not scale events.

This was true originally, but during season 1 they changed how scaling worked. Back then, you basically only counted towards scaling if you were in combat. The problem with that however was that zerging was popular and bosses could be zerged down before they actually scaled. To fix that, they changed scaling to factor everyone within the event’s area, regardless of it they were participating or not, dead or alive. If you want an easy example, look at the defense event next to AC. All those waiting at the dungeon’s entrance cause it to upscale. That event only lasts ~5 minutes however, so at the very least, AFK players count for that long.

jmt.8517:

Will new legends be added with HoT? Or after?

Both. Only some of them will be released with HoT. How long it’ll take for all of them, you can only guess.

Back in the day when they first talked about new legendaries, they said that they would likely start with the less serious ones. If you want to assume that is still the case, a new legendary greatsword will likely not come with HoT.

Make a private guild and use the letter of influence. You can buy your first 50 slot guild bank for extra storage.