Guild Wars 2

Achievement leaderboards only exist because it was the easiest PvE oriented leaderboard to implement. In the future, there should be a lot more, for example speed run dungeon leaderboards or activity leaderboards.

Most things in GW2 are designed so that it only requires time, meaning even if you’re a bad player, you’ll still be able to obtain it. There are exceptions of course, fractals for example. By having dailies count, it means you’re not required to do any achievements. Eventually, everyone will have everything and being better just speeds up the process. Take away dailies, and people will complain about being locked out and having to do PvE, WvW and SPvP achievements.

The only point of the leaderboards is to determine the last time a person was online.

100% completion involves WvW. Unless you purposely delay the stream, people will use it to hunt you down. Even in PvE, people will try to train mobs to kill you.

If you want a challenge, no gear except weapons.

If anything, all future gear will be obtained like this because getting a full set of exotics in a single day back at launch ruined the game for “dedicated players”, hence the introduction of ascended gear.

You could always buy the crafted gear, then when you make it yourself, sell it.

Kaz.5430:

Lets say you have a map script in which every time a user zooms or moves to generate a new view of the map, it calls https://api.guildwars2.com/v1/map_floor.json?continent_id=1&floor=1.

I hope that’s just an example. Requesting static data should only be done once, when the app initializes.

Map tile images already implement an “md5 checksum” using headers. When using these headers, in your request, you supply your checksum and then the server makes a comparison. If they match, the server returns just a header stating that the content was not modified and if they don’t match, the request occurs like normal.

The actual request headers are “If-Modified-Since: x” or “If-None-Match: y” where x and y are from the response headers “Last-Modified: x” and “ETag: y”.

anzenketh.3759:

Jabberwock.9014:

If you bank all your money waypoints are free when you die. You could also try using a low level character for cheaper waypoints.

It withdraws it out of your bank. It would all need to be on another character. I think the purpose of this event is to correct the economy. Mat sinks and gold sinks here I come.

Use a guild bank.

The boxes contain recipes and quartz. Quartz has to be transformed to be used, which is limited to once a day and requiring 25 quartz. Opening boxes for just quartz is probably not worth it since by the sounds of it, you can easily get more than 25 a day from actively playing through the content.

The patch notes are vague on the boxes and makes it sound like there may be something else in them. Of course, it’s probably just referring to the quartz. If they intend for a lot of materials to be destroyed because of the boxes, they would have to contain something more than just recipes, since if they’re guaranteed per box, you’ll only need a few. If anything, there’s probably something in them with the usual .01% drop rate.

If you don’t care, there’s no reason to buy them (except for the possible unknown contents, which should be confirmed within a few hours of going live).

They try to avoid processing with the API. Having a checksum option would most likely require them to constantly recalculate it since the API itself probably doesn’t know when it has been changed. It probably just reads the data directly and returns the response. With the amount of requests they receive, it’s not feasible to calculate the sum with every request. That would mean they would have to calculate it every so often, which would open up problems where the data has changed but the sum has not. It wouldn’t really matter though, since you don’t need up to the millisecond data.

A 3rd party site could provide this functionality. Sites like gwstats.net are already constantly checking some of the APIs~, so sites like those could also provide a checksum or modified since.

Checking the build is meaningless when it comes to new data. Remember, the data is only available once it is found. That means items might now show up for days or even months after a new build is introduced. If any items are changed however, they will be changed with a build.

The only advantage to using “md5.json?=” over a etag or modified since header is that they could hope nobody uses it so they wouldn’t have to calculate the checksum. The obvious downside is that it would take 2 requests to download something, whereas with the header tags, the server would stop or continue the response. The problem with additional headers is that it further bloats responses.

DarkSpirit.7046:

1. What if certain api responses are fewer than 32 characters? Wouldn’t it be more efficient to just return the response than generating the MD5 checksum, and then returning them?

When requesting the status of a single event, the response header is around the same size as the data. Furthermore, if you request it to be gzipped, the response is bloated, becoming larger than it would be uncompressed. Cases where efficiency is lost already exist.

Thrumdi.9216:

There’s a thirdy-party program that mines the leaderboards? Could you point us towards that?

http://code.google.com/p/gw2-lastonline-leaderboards/

(direct link)

They probably only have 1, maybe 2 UI designers, so only one project can be handled at a time. At this time, their priority is the LFG tool, which is hinted at in the files.

Last online functionality can be ripped from the achievement leaderboards. If you don’t want to manually look, there’s a program for that.

Blind needs to be changed. It’s kind of funny that blind spam can negate an entire mechanic. Take the Jungle Wurm for example. Without blind, people are knocked back, feared and poisoned. With a single blind every few seconds, it’s as if the boss is a target dummy.

In some cases, it doesn’t even make sense that certain attacks can be blinded. Take a PBAoE for example. How could that possibly miss?

20% VAT + exchange rate fluctuation.

USD prices don’t include tax, but may be included after since some states require it while others don’t.

Every event is different so you can’t just trust the status of the event. Some events may reset to warmup while others reset to preparation or something else. Only the active status can be trusted and in some cases, like for Tequatl, the event can turn active about a minute before it actually happens in-game.

Tequatl will go from warmup to active to success then back to warmup.

It’s already possible to fully bot the TP, so there’s no point in using it as a reason to not do something.

Changing how picking up items works to something like an inventory that could be accessed through the TP (api) could open up some interesting possibilities. This would allow people to play the TP detached from the character, allowing for out of game trading. I imagine this was originally in the design plan as part of the extended experience, maybe even as a paid service, since why else design it as a webpage that can be accessed out of game.

At this time, I could write an app that could allow you to use the trading post as if you were in-game, with the exception of picking up items, which isn’t actually part of the TP. The only requirement is that the game has to be running.

Armor like that is only modeled for that type of character, which is why although it is in the game, you can’t have it. In some cases, the armor may not be armor at all and actually a part of the NPC’s model.

They could take that armor and release it as a gender specific cultural armor, but I can guarantee you people will complain about it and call them out for favoritism.

The reason why they don’t release armor very often is because it takes more time than releasing something like a weapon. Weapons can be designed once, whereas armor has to be customized for each race and gender combination, with the chest and legs being the most expensive.

It’s possible to fully automate the trading post, you just need an auto clicker or something to pickup items, since that isn’t part of the trading post website. Buying can already be done outside the game, that’s the easy part. Selling can only be done through the game, since the website doesn’t actually handle it. The website tells the game to sell the item. To automate this part, you hijack the trading post and insert your own scripts, telling it what to sell.

There’s also a small bug/flaw with the trading post window. When you close it, it doesn’t actually close, it’s just hidden. This isn’t really a problem for players, but this part wastes a lot of resources on the server side, since probably a lot of people do this. If you close the window while on the sell tab, any changes to your inventory will request an update. Every time you open a bag or loot a mob for example, a request is made for those items.

Some people don’t bother with the non-Aetherblade holos and as a result, the next person to come by is only going to find the regular ones. If no one bothers to clear them, there’ll never be Aetherblade ones.

It’s safe to assume it will because if it didn’t, that would mean they’re also introducing a new level of gathering (meaning new tools) which would go together with a new level of crafting. Something like that would only happen in a major update (like an expansion).

It may not even use gathering tools. It could just be something you pick up.

FInN.7219:

how does it show like that?

It doesn’t. <insert conspiracy>.

Only a handful of items will ever change and in most cases, it should happen within the first few months of an expansion or major release. The build changes too often to rely on it. You’d be re-caching everything every few days and 99% of the time, nothing will change.

If the system needs to be automated, re-cache items based on how old their cache is. For example, 30 days from the day you cached said item, update it. After say, 6 months, the item probably won’t be changed again, so either stop checking those, or increase the time between checks.

If you can rely on the user, add an option to flag the item to be updated, since eventually, the user will find the error.

Another method is to manually update items by reading patch notes or by parsing the patch notes for item names, though the notes usually miss a lot.

Their backend even limits you, so you can’t even make a direct request above 250. Not sure why they would limit it like that, since placing an order for 1000 items is easier to process than 4x 250. The only actual reason I can see for limiting it is to give everyone a chance, so that 1 person doesn’t have an entire chunk to themselves. This allows other people to place their orders in between the person that is placing multiple orders, for an actively traded item of course.

Unlike selling, buy orders aren’t throttled and can be placed outside of the game. By browsing the trading post through <insert web browser> using the game’s session key, you can easily run a simple script to place multiple buy orders instantly.

When asked to do this for events, the response was to just request everything at once, since the server could handle it. I wish there was the option available though, since 1/2 of the 10 KB/s I use to track events is purely from headers.

For item details though, there is no option, but these requests are something you should have to do only once. The reason why they probably don’t have a request everything option is because of the amount of items that has to be processed per request. If cached however, there’s really no reason not to.

To confirm, you deleted all folders whose name begins with gw2cache? The full name is something like gw2cache-{XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX}. The folder should have contained a data folder which contained a Cookies file and a cache folder. To verify you deleted the right one, find the folder by opening the file location of awesomium_process.exe using the task manager.

Simple connectivity test: Visit https://tradingpost-live.ncplatform.net/. The page should say invalid authorization. Make sure the website’s security certificate is valid, since any error will cause the trading post to fail in-game. If it’s not, manually install the certificate: http://www.startssl.com/certs/ca.cer. If it can’t connect at all, something is blocking your connection, which might be an ISP issue. If it can’t connect, try http://64.25.40.15/ which is the trading post’s IP address. The response should be a server error. If it can connect, you have a DNS error, if it can’t, you’re being blocked.

Installing Fiddler is quite simple. It will ask to install root certificates and windows will confirm it. This certificate is what allows Fiddler to see the data being sent over https connections.

To use Fiddler, simply run it and then try opening the trading post. The response should pop up in Fiddler. The first page requested is always the authentication. The response should look like this:

Shaha.1634:

Company B gave Company A that something to sell in the first place. If company B is offering a refund on their product it should go for the hard copy also. Its the same product, for the same price.

Company B didn’t give Company A anything. Company A bought the product from Company B to resell. Why would Company B offer you a refund for something that Company A did. Company A would have to offer you the refund then get a refund from Company B.

The pricing between Company A and B aren’t even the same. Having one offer a refund for the other would create a possibility of making money.

Assuming Windows, with the game not running:

First, delete the trading post’s cache folder. You can find it under one of the following folders. Search the folder for a folder whose name begins with “gw2cache”.

Generic: %localappdata%\temp
Vista/7: c:\users\your user name\appdata\local\temp\
XP: c:\documents and settings\your user name\localsettings\temp\

If you can’t find it, start GW2, open the trading post, press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC to bring up the task manager, click the processes tab and find awesomium_process.exe. Right click it and select open file location. You need to delete the data folder. Close the game first.

Next, open the command prompt. Start > Program > Accessories > Command Prompt, or search/run cmd. In the command prompt, type the following commands (right click the black window to paste):

ipconfig /flushdns
netsh winsock reset

Next, update the root certificates. You should already have this unless your computer hasn’t been updated in a very long time, in which case, you should fully run windows update.

http://download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/v3/static/trustedr/en/rootsupd.exe

Lastly, there are a few security programs that can interfere with the trading post. McAfee (I think is one of them) for example, can block the trading post even when disabled. If you know you’re running any programs that can interfere, such as antiviruses, firewalls or anything that can block internet traffic, add an exception for GW2 and awesomium_process.exe (you’ll have to start the game to create it). If you happen to use a proxy, this can also be the cause.

If it still fails and you want to get more advanced, download Fiddler. This program will allow you to see the request being made to the trading post. This will allow you to see if the connection is being made and what the response is. As a bonus, it will also fix certificate issues.

If GW2 is to be skin based, skins should be separated from gear and unlocked, like sort of an achievement system. Once unlocked, the skin could be replicated as many times as you wish by using a transmutation copy stone. Dropped items could remain the same and given an option to break it down into a skin format, causing the item to be destroyed, but allowing you to create and unlock the skin.

Gem store skins at the very least should be treated as an unlock, similar to how HoM skins work.

Also, dyes should be reverted to being account bound. The reasoning that they’re character progression doesn’t really hold up. The same excuse could be made for achievements being character bound, since for example, you didn’t earn that dungeon achievement on <insert class>. Achievements don’t sell gems though.

Allowing batch buying should also help with server processing. There’s a big difference between 1000 requests and a single one. Likewise, it’s odd the trading post is also capped at a single stack, since it’s the same waste. Maybe they have a problem with dealing with multiple stacks / lack of space.

At the very least, there should be either a hotkey so that you can just hold enter to spam buy or add a option to disable confirmations for the current session with the vendor.

For now however, double click macro.

It’s not a (intended) change. It’s a bug.

loquacious.2915:

All you have done is make people just wait to go to Jormag and do other world bosses while a few get the event to the end and get the same reward as those who did the entire event. How is this far?

The entire open world is unfair like this. It’s far too easy to exploit the work of others due to the shared system. For example, watch someone solo a champ, hit it once before it dies and get the same share of the loot. Yesterday I logged into a 1% hp shadow behemoth, hit it once and got gold contribution.

People have been tagging and running events since the start of the game, simply because the system allows it. If I run through a zone gathering and killing mobs in the way, I can usually get 5 or so event completions in 30-60 min without ever seeing an event, just because I killed a mob on the event’s path.

They once said that WvW is what they wanted GvG to originally be, but it wasn’t feasible then. As for actually adding in a GvG game type, like SPvP, I wouldn’t count on it. There might be similar maps added to SPvP however, where tournament and custom arenas can be used for guilds to duel.

They want to limit how many different game formats there are since with GW1, they found that too many options split up the player base and made it difficult to get in to.

Eremko.6950:

What makes you think that event_details is an extension to event_names?

From my perspective, that was the starting point, so grabbing the details is something you do after you know what you’re looking for. Starting fresh however, event_details makes event_names redundant, so it’s not really an extension, but the starting point. Just looking at the data though, you can see how event_details adds data on top of event_names, hence, extending it.

Having the array key based really shouldn’t change much for you. Instead of parsing the data into a class such as EventDetails, parse it into a dictionary of <String, EventDetails>. If you wanted EventDetails to also contain the event’s ID, then I could see where you’re now facing the problem of having to go through everything twice, without using a custom deserializer, like what was required in JavaScript.

Example:
rq = new RestRequest(“…event_details.json”);
rq.RootElement = “events”;
details = client.Execute<Dictionary<string, EventDetails>>(rq);

The guild I was with, with around 30 people, quit months ago simply because the game doesn’t really offer anything. The mostly-PvE players got to 80, did the dungeons and quit. Some return for the events, but since they only play for a few hours then leave, I guess they’re not that interested. The dedicated PvP players got bored quick while the more casual ones played a few games a day for months, then moved on. A few players quit really early on due to how leveling works. With no clear direction (quest chains), I guess it just seemed as one big grind.

The game taught a few people that previously complained about vertical progression that they liked vertical progression. For example, the same people that complained about getting 1 shot in the previous MMO due to gear now complain about not having gear to work towards, giving them the ability to 1 shot noobs.

Altogether, I’d have the say the base reason is the game is just too casual, to a point where even the people that only played a few hours a day or every few days (the casual players of the guild) finished everything in just a few months. For comparison, in a typical MMO, it would take a few months to get to that point, where you would then have to grind gear for a few months, at which point the whole thing repeats. Even though they don’t like grinding, it’s the thing that kept them playing since it gave them a goal. You could say this is where legendaries come in, but since they’re just a skin, no one was really that interested.

Like for many people, the cycle will just continue. They will hop to the next game and begin anew. GW2 was one of the shortest MMOs I’ve seen them hop to, lasting roughly 3 months (most last at least 6 months to a year). The only shorter one was Aion, which lasted about a month until level grinding the same thing over and over killed it.

Mentalhead.5721:

Also, is there a way to check number of active players in a zone / server, perhaps an API tool or something like that?

No. The only way to do that would be by getting everyone to run a program, such as the one that tracks your in-game position, and then calculate the numbers off of who’s in what zone.

Either they were only a small group, or doing it completely wrong. It only takes about 30 minutes, roughly 10 minutes longer after the change. It’s probably a bug, since there’s no real reason to increase the length of the longest dragon event.

To speed up the encounter, get everyone to attack both feet and the head when it’s stunned. Doing this, each player should easily be doing 3k-10k dps. When there’s enough people to deal with the ice pillars, everyone else should be keeping conditions up, since they bypass the damage reduction. People should be shooting through fire and poison fields while others stack bleeds. The champs don’t need to be killed, just keep them out of the path of the golems.

Also, game wide, reward vs time and effort is completely broken, so this isn’t anything new.

Eremko.6950:

Is it just me or do you also see the inconsistency in Event Details API?

Some people were complaining about how the events were just in a simple array and wanted them to be referenced by the key instead. Since event_details is an extension to event_names, it makes more sense to have the IDs be the keys, since when you already know the ID, you just look it up, rather than iterating through the entire array to search for it. This makes it easier when using javascript. The obvious downside though, which they’ve already encountered, is duplicate keys (map api), causing data to be lost when parsed.

Not sure what RestSharp does, since I use a custom parser, but with the format of event_details, it should be parsed into something like a dictionary. Getting a specific event should be as easy as dictionary[key].

event_details lists the event’s static starting position (where the event is located by default when the server starts), so if the event moves around, it’s not accurate. It also doesn’t take the server into account, so you wouldn’t be able to lookup where it is on your server anyways.

Karka roll. Get’s stuck on a rock.

But since that has a warning animation…

Veteran karka charge. Get’s stuck on a rock (grain of sand). 10k damage per second.

If the game was a little more realistic, charging into a wall wouldn’t be a strategy, because you would be stunned as you slammed your face into the wall.

Danikat.8537:

As far as I know Anet have never said they would add new legendary skins.

#19 (24 :25)
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/80938-interview-with-colin-johanson/

And for something more recent,

ColinJohanson.2394:

We still plan to do both new legendary weapons, as well as a clear path (on top of the current random chance) to gain precursors which players can see their progress and understand how much work they have left to do to gain it.

The filter is actually already there. It’s just not in the drop down box, so you can’t select it.

Search for spineguard brace warmer splice if you want to see all back items. The keyword brace will also show a bunch of other things, like bracers though. Only two back items contain that keyword.

If you also want to include skins, such as the quaggan backpack, search for backpack jet

They’ll be doing an overview in July, detailing what they’ll be doing in the coming months. There’s no ETA currently set. The only hint was that the way precursors are obtained would probably be changed first.

Currently, you have to search for the name of the back item, ie, spineguard. There are a few hidden search categories, back items being one of them, but they’re not available by default. They could very easily add these categories in, since the functionality is already there. It’s really as simply as adding a line of text.

Chaotic Storm.2815:

Wasn’t that the point of achievements in the first place to be something we could show of and say “hey look what crazy thing I managed to pull off”

Marketing happened. Achievements are an easy way to create additional content at little cost. They provide a goal where otherwise, there’d be no reason to do something except to just be doing it. They’re now just used as a trick to make you feel like you’re being rewarded, when really, all you’re getting is a line of text.

When the casual market joined in, difficult content had to be made easier to appease the masses. Why develop hard content when only the 1% will be able to do it. During this transition, achievements went from being something rare and challenging to being something that everyone had and if you didn’t, you were bad.

More recently, achievements are being used to just get you to do something which otherwise you may not do. For example, an achievement for liking something on facebook. Welcome to the future, where in the year 2014, achievements are rewarded for watching commercials on tv.

All the timers did was remove the need to sit there and AFK it for an hour. Now you can just pop in at the last minute, hit it once and collect your loot.

The loot change is was ruined it. In the open world, reward-wise there’s no point in doing anything else since why bother when you can get free rares for doing nothing. The next loot update should fix this, but as long as a zerg can hit a single mob and have everyone get loot, the problem will continue to persist.

All the camps have to be safe for the merchants to sell the exotic items. The problem with this is, by the time they’re all safe, one is about to be attacked again, giving you only a few minutes to access the vendor.

You’ll probably have a very hard time accessing the vendor unless you can find an active zerg in southsun doing all the events.

If they simply reward total achievements points, you can get the max rewards without ever doing an actual achievement. Just do dailies. Missing points from the Living Story doesn’t even matter.

Lyssa’s defense event is BFA71CD0-ED1E-4EE3-B8A9-B23B98C3B786
CoE’s defense event is 9752677E-FAE7-4F56-A48A-275329095B8A

There are/were plans (announced back in January) to add additional rewards to achievements and rewards based on total points. Since recent achievements rewards items, maybe that’s as far as they’re going to take it now.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Rewards-from-TOTAL-Achievement-Points/2099864

There’s a hidden option on the trading post to filter the search based on profession. Unfortunately however, it doesn’t work and they probably dropped support for it to work on other things. They should be able to easily implement it however, since… .

Here’s a .NET (2.0) C# example to read the coordinates.

Note that they negated the Z coordinate so that Z>0 is above while Z<0 is below. The actual Z coordinate, which is also what the API uses, is the opposite, where Z>0 is below.

X and Y are the same, where X>0 is east, X<0 is west, Y>0 is north and Y<0 is south from the central point (0, 0) which is usually the center of the zone.

Those coordinates ([-28975, 27321.2, -785.732]) look like what the in-game coordinates look like.

In-game, coordinates are calculated from the center of the map, where a negative on the Z axis is above sea level (Z is jumping). Moving West from the center of the map is negative on the X axis and moving South from the center of the map is negative on the Y axis. This is why there are negative coordinates.

The map_rect appears to be the [south east corner], [north west corner] coordinates. From what I’ve recorded, Queensdale is around that size (86016w, 58368h). Using map_rect, you can find the center and from that, place the event coordinate.

The continent_rect appears to be [x, y], [x + width, y + height] in pixels based on the world map when fully zoomed in. Using this, you should be able to calculate the center along with map_rect to place the coordinate on the map.

I haven’t played with these APIs yet, so I’m judging everything based on the Queensdale example above, and what I’ve personally recorded using in-game coordinates.

They’re trying to emulate a living world, but instead of just denying you the ability to play through it, they’re giving you the option to. If people didn’t complain, all the events would be a 1 time only thing and not doing it at the time of release would have meant that you missed out entirely. Their spoiler is basically them reporting the news.

UKNightWatch.5742:

Maybe, just maybe, they posted the spoilers as a way to try to placate all those complaining that ANet does not give good communication (if any) about certain aspects of the game. Foot, gun, shot – choose your order!

It’s not just a maybe, it is the result of people complaining. Back when they didn’t give any information and people actually had to explore, those that weren’t very active would completely miss out. This is why they give out guides in advance, and people still complain about missing event windows.

Assuming the notes are real, saying it now only stacks 5 times doesn’t really make sense. Currently, weakness stacks like burning, where it infinitely stacks in duration. Just saying it only stacks 5 times would mean it would only stack in duration 5 times, limiting its maximum possible duration. Since new applications overwrite however, you could keep weakness alive by refreshing it. If a zerg inflicted weakness all at once however, it would be capped at 5*<longest individual durations> seconds, instead of lasting a few minutes like it would now.

Assuming it’s not just a zerg prevention, it would make more sense if they meant it now stacks intensity and now only stacks up to 5 times. This would mean weakness would be like bleeding, where 5 stacks would mean a 125% chance to fumble. But then why 125%? Did they mean 20% chance at 5 stacks or 25% chance at 4 stacks, or is there just an extra 25%?

Unshakable currently reduces weakness duration by 50%. In this case, the new weakness would be pretty short, since it would only last 1 second if the average weakness lasts 2-3 seconds. If this is also changed, to something like reduces fumble chance by 50%, then weakness stacking in intensity up to 125% makes more sense, though depending on how that’s calculating, using weakness alone against this would be useless.

In a PvP scenario, the difference between 4 stacks of weakness and 5 would be the difference of a coordinated team, since the extra 25% would be useless.

… or the notes could just be fake.

Skill challenges are a little tricky when it comes to their name, since not all of them have one. A lot of them are events but others are simply objects, items or dialogue.

I’d like to know what their future plans are, or at least what they don’t plan on supporting. When he says the map doesn’t currently support doing something (like events and vendors), I’d like to know if he actually intends on adding it or not. I’ve been manually recording this data for months, and it takes about a week to log everything in a zone, so I’d really like to know how much of it is going to waste – gathering nodes and event trees being the most time consuming.

Dr Ishmael.9685:

I spent almost two months re-exploring Tyria with a new character, taking screenshots of the map after discovering each sector, then manually drawing the boundaries to make maps for the wiki.

I was just wondering yesterday if you actually did that manually.