Guild Wars 2

I kinda miss having to go to the kitten end of the world to capture some Elite skill, yeah… I’d personally like to see this return.

Unfortunately then it comes down to the Terms and Conditions of each company to see what happens in the event of a loss, and under the Terms of Use for GW2 then, basically A-Net is not required to reimburse you for any loss, whether that loss is in gold, in lost “play time”, etc. You agreed that you’re playing of yor own free will and while A-Net will ATTEMPT to make the environment as secure as possible, all of us as players also have a requirement to secure our own accounts.

Keep in mind that bank accounts and credit cards (which store and/or move actual, real money) are protected for consumers (not small businesses) under US Banking Law, but those same laws absolutely don’t apply to “virtual” or proprietary currencies (like GW gold or rare items), no matter how “valuable” they are to us, as players. Bottom line is that there ARE bad people out there and they ARE trying to steal your stuff and they DO have really, really good tools to do so available, so you need to make it as hard as humanly possible for them to do so – hence my suggestions. If you do those… well… nothing is GUARANTEED, but my experience is that basic awareness of the fundamentals of online security (particularly in regards to passwords and antivirus), combined with healthy skepticism re: what links you click on and what sites you visit can be a tremendous help.

Be safe!

Sorry guys, but account security is OUR responsibility, one we must take seriously. A-Net has actually built a pretty good system I think, especially if you’re making them validate any new login attempts via sending a email confirmation (is that even optional?) Keep in mind what this means: if a hacker accesses your account, and an email went out asking for confirmation, then they’ve hacked your email as well. That’s very, very, bad.

Here are some basic password security tips that EVERYONE should religiously adhere to (at minimum):

1. Use a STRONG password – despite what most people think, the current thinking that a password like “p4$$w0rd” (relatively short, but mixes letters, numbers, and special characters) is actually VERY easy for a machine to crack. Plus it’s hard for human brains to remember. The current state-of-the-art in passwords is a LONG password, ideally as long as you can fit into the box, which is a easy-to-remember phrase like: “I Love Guild Wars 2 and Play Every Day” (which still uses letters (caps even), special characters (spaces) and numbers, plus is easy for a human being to remember.
2. DO NOT RE-USE PASSWORDS!! I can’t stress this enough! If your GW2 password is the same as your Facebook password, or (worse) the one you use to get into your school account or bank site, you’re practically begging a fraudster to steal your ID and quite possibly your real-world money. Bank law says that for consumer accounts you’re only label for the first $50 if your account gets cleared out, but it can (and will) take countless hours to change all your identification and web sites, so don’t let it happen in the first place.
3. DON’T BE SHADY – Most “hacks” are simply small pieces of malicious code (“malware”) that gets placed on a computer that monitors things like keystrokes and that takes screenshots – this is how passwords and multi-factor security (remember “security pictures”?) have been defeated for more than a decade. New malware actively lets the hacker get in-session with you ON YOUR MACHINE while you work, which defeats the mechanism that’s used to detect a “new login location” (since the fraudster is, essentially using your IP address to get online). Where does this malware typically come from? Mainly from “shady” places like ISO and BitTorrent sites, as well as pr0n. Bottom line is that if you absolutely MUST go to sites like this, pretty much EXPECT they’re actively infecting your machine every time you get online. What? You really didn’t think all that “free” stuff was REALLY FREE did you? Clue: they pay the bills hacking your stuff. Which leads me to:
4. DON’T TRUST ANTIVIRUS. Even a good setup like Norton or Macaffe is as porous as an old knit sweater when it comes to current malware like Zeus and Spyeye variants. At minimum, I’d recommend running ALL of the free AV suites (Avast!, AVG, Panda, Malwarebytes, and Windows own in-built detectors, at minimum. I personally run a full scan with a different package every day, since some find things others miss. If you have a paid subscription to Norton or another commercial app I’d run the free ones alongside it, even though they’ll tell you that you may get “false positives” as one AV app interferes with another. While this is indeed true, my experience is this is the exception rather than the rule. And it you DO get a hit, just REFORMAT THE ENTIRE MACHINE as opposed to trying to “clean” it – most malware is good at resisting removal, and sometimes (usually, in fact) even is set to make a sacrificial copy that AV software can “remove” to create a false sense of sccurity. The only way to get rid of it 100% is to “nuke the site from orbit”, by totally re-formatting the hard drive and re-installing. Be careful when reinstalling though to carefully check saved files on external hard drives, as malware can also sometimes make backups of itself in My Documents or other often-backed-up locations (meaning that you get re-infected just by copying back your files after a reload).

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

darkcool.8615:

Racial skill are meant to be less powerfull since all the race have different race skill but same class skill. They are there for the fun of using them and not of owning kitten

Tell that to the Asura, or humans.

True… I LOVE my racials on my Asuran Ranger – the golems are AWESOME.

I gotta admit this thread has me worried. I picked Norn for my thief alt because I envisioned animal form to be the huge, hulking hybrid form from GW1, but the way people sre describing the experience is… meh. Guess I’ll see when I get a few more levels.

Because you have the bank – anything in there is available to any alt automatically.

Eviator.9746:

1 & 2) these are boring
3) initiative issues early on, conditions tend to be rather poor at tagging mobs in group events for loot, a single mistake is frequently fatal
4) though this is a lot of fun and fits my playstyle, fights take rather longer, it’s tough to do enough damage to multiple mobs in group events to tag them for loot, initiative is an issue early on, and a single mistake is frequently fatal

Do I have this right? If so, perhaps thief is not for me.

I was too stressed out managing Inititive at the lower levels to make D/D fun enough to stick with – it was STUPID fun, jumping around all over the place, but I ran out of Init. too easy, leading to the “one mistake = death” issue you mentioned. That said, I hear it’s much less of an issue when you’re Traited properly at higher level,but it still looks like a combo that has a single “optimal” way to play.

That’s why, as I said, I’m preferring S/D with P/P as a secondary, at least for now. It feels not only like it has enough utility that I can deal with various situations (ooops, I pulled 5 mobs when I only expected 2… good thing I have a plan for that), but it’s also FUN, at least for me. I can stick in close using S/D with dodges/caltrops for single mobs, unleash the full Caltrops skill if I get a big pull (then dodge away so I can switch to P/P), or just stay at range with pistols for boss fights, DE’s , etc.

Give it a try.

spif.7580:

Recommend trying to move your “home” movement keys from WASD to ESDF. This puts your pinky on A (still giving you access to tab, caps, shift, ctrl). If you touch-type then you won’t have to move your left hand to communicate quickly even during battles.

Now look at your hand – you will have keys such as Q, W, R, T, G, V, C, and to a lesser extent, Z, X, Y and H. All of these should be considered for your skills. The number keys and F1 are just too far away in comparison.

Actually not a bad idea, but I don’t touch type and on MY keyboard (a laptop) the F keys are still too far away. BUt I can se that working after adjusting for the different keys, sure…

You could always allow PvP on any server anywhere in the world by allowing players to toggle a “PvP” flag, too. that way, people who want the thrill that comes from having to worry about random ganks when you stop to harvest an ore node or fight a trash mob can do so, and others (like me) who basically only want to PvE can do that as well, side-by-side with the PvP’ers. I think it’d definitely add some spice to the game world and allow for deeper roleplaying even (since players could attack other players in the PvE environent), but Id definitely want it to be an OPTIONAL thing.

Tulisin.6945:

ImagoX.4718:

Acrobatics skill that pops MORE caltrops when you dodge)
…
spike with Dancing Dagger (bounces between packed-together mobs for big damage)

The trait is Uncatchable, Trickery Trait III, but you’re right about how awesome it is.

I wouldn’t rely on Dancing Dagger for spike post-nerf.

Sorry, you’re right… my bad. Thanks for the catch. And I do’t know what Dancing Dagger did pre-nerf, but it’s still a major part of my DPS – not only does it bounce around (4 targets max, meaning the more mobs around you the more damage it does, all the while firing Signet of Malice), but the output isn’t bad. You can quick-fire 2 in a row with full Init. Of course, it also Cripples, so even on single targets I usually fire one in as I gap close. If it’s weaker now then it must have indeed been close to OP pre-nerf.

Look to take skills that weaken/debuff mobs (Caltrops is wonderful for this, as is the 10pt. Acrobatics skill that pops MORE caltrops when you dodge). Signet of Malice in our heal slot works well with Caltrops since they proc the signet as attackers walk over them, providing a nice stream of passive healing. We are indeed squishy, but we can mitigate that quite a bit by weakening the mobs so they don’t hit us as hard.

I’m only lvl 25 right now, and my gear is certainly nothing to write home about, but I can easily take on 3-5 PvE mobs simultaneously in a pinch by unloading Caltrops in the middle of them, then using smart attacks and skills. I like Sword/Dagger because I can hit multiple foes with the basic autoattack and spike with Dancing Dagger (bounces between packed-together mobs for big damage). Remember that Signet of Malice is healing you as you hit, so you might actually find yourself rounding up multiple mobs so you can group-thump them. It’s fun!

Pistol/Pistol is a good backup to S/D as its good for those very tough solo mobs like Veterans, especially the Warrior ones that hit like a ton of bricks. With out mobility, it’s pretty easy to dodge around big boss attacks (dropping debuffing/healing caltrops all the while) while circle-strafing for constant ranged damage. Again… fun.

Thief is definitely all about smart timing and positioning and it CAN be frustrating when you get hit hard for a huge chunk of your health, I agree, but I love mine so far in PvE and I hoe you will, too. Good luck!

I usually use S/D in my main, but P/P is my go-to set for bosses and groups – I love that I can still use utilities like Caltrops while remaining at range. The on-demand Daze is a great panic button IMHO.

Yeah really the only special things I have are some extra mouse buttons down by my thumb, like Phantom. I use them for the Steal and my Elite as well. I have Dodge bound to my Mouse 3 (the wheel button) as it’s LOTS faster and more precise to be able to Dodge on-demand for me using that button instead of movement double-tap (which doesn;t fire about 10% of the time for some reason).

thewho.5841:

Why some one would be still using D/D?

Maybe because it’s fun? Or because he has great mobility and so rarely dies?

Softspoken.2410:

Well, you do have a dagger offhand. But yes, Shadow Refuge is amazing.

OK, true enough, but honestly I mainly use Cloak and Dagger as soon as it’s up to keep as much Vulnerability on the target as possible as part of my overall “debuff as much as possible” strategy – I honestly forgot about the Stealth!

Softspoken.2410:

Chill makes skill timers recharge 66% more slowly. So if you chill a player who has a skill with 30 seconds left on its recharge, you delay that recharge and make it take even longer for the skill to be available again. I am not certain if PvE mobs use this same timer system.
As to ‘snared’, it’s a slightly stronger version of cripple, that I believe stacks with cripple, so that a monster moves at 1/6th its regular speed. Which can be enough to keep a boss from catching someone who’s used up their endurance already.

Yep, this is exactly why I had Ice Drake Venom in the initial build, but I very nearly had Shadow Refuge in that slot when I first put the build together. I have replaced it in the current linked build, as I remembered that you can do other things besides emergency rezzing with the Refuge (unmolested harvesting in PvE comes to mind, as well as a good “oh crap” button since I have no other source of Stealth.

Ah… see this is why I posted in here.

My first bad asumption was that the 10pt. deadly arts Trait would apply to ALL venoms, but reading more carefully I see that it would only apply to Spider Venom (which specifically poisons as a result of the skill). In that regard, Venomous Strength in the 10pt. slot does make a lot more sense, I agree.

I also was indeed relying on Acrobatics XI (Hard to Catch) to clear Disables as it automatically procs the moment I get disabled any way, but I agree the 60 sec. cooldown had me a bit worried. Need to ponder that, or just try it in a few real-life situations and see if I face plant too many times. Honestly, in Dungeons, I expect I’ll usually be at range with P/P using various envenomed pistol #1 spam (which also causes bleeding) and #2 (which adds weakness). I’m also a big fan of ranged attacks that cause Daze from my Ranger, which I get with Pistol#4 (Headshot) – I’ve gotten pretty good at interrupting any big charge-up type attacks using dazing shots, and want to keep using this mechanic on my Thief. I figure that I don’t usually get a ton of disable effects on my when I Dungeon with my Ranger due to being at range and assumed this would also be true with my Thief.

Acrobatics VIII (Pain Response) is currently the only thing I have to remove conditions like bleed/poison/burning, which concerns me, I agree… Yes, Sword#2 has a one-condition removal, but I understand that it might not be up when I need it. Ideas?

Last, yes I understand that Acrobatics has a lot of Inititive-building traits (which I’ve avoided), but obviously that shows that it’s not “all about” Inititive, particularly when my plan is to rely on non-initive attacks like basic sword and pistol attacks (beefed up with various venom- and trait-based buffs/debuffs to give them some heft) to do the “heavy lifting”. I understand this is not the typical way to fight with a Thief – if I wanted to micromanage my Init. I’d just go D/D with a SB backup like 99 out of 100 other Thieves out there. I’ve seen other build threads that relied on this “alternative” Thief mechanic with good reported success, and I have to admit that a ssoon as I switched from D/D to S/D as my main weapon selection I started having a lot more fun in PvE, which is where this build came from. I understand I won’t be “maximally efficient” in Dungeons and I’d likely be a fine red mist in PvP, but I really couldn’t care less about winning against other players. Mainly trying to give myself lots of utility in all the various PvE/story/Dungeon environments.

To that end, here’s the modified build (uses Shadow Refuge which I ALMOST went with, plus switches out a few utilities and Traits, based on comments here): http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmkmzMMz0ovFMMov0xmx9MxamRbMRqc

Thanks for the tips!!

Based on some threads praising P/P as a secondary set for S/D primary (my personal favorite so far), I came up with a build I’d like advice on please.

I primarily do PvE and Dungeons. My main weapon set is Sword/Dagger, with Pistol/Pistol as an on-demand secondary for DE support and times when I want to soften up a target from range before laying in with melee. I do NOT like the stealth mechanisms much, or the steals – I prefer flat-out combat/constant movement and repositioning/lots of dodging, as that way I don’t have to constantly worry about Initiative (I tried D/D and it gave me anxiety attacks ).

This build uses lots of venom in the utility slots, with traits chosen to buff them (Deadly Arts 30). Other synergies are Acrobatics 30 as a condition remover, as well as to power my dodge, which is my main damage mitigation – the 15pt. Acrobatics trait returns endurance with every dodge. I also get Might when I dodge as well. ALSO on dodge, I use the 10pt. Trickery skill to lay caltrops – these fire Signet of Malice multiple times when mobs walk over them, providing a constant stream of healing.

If I get in over my head melee-wise I can use Sword #2 to Shadowstep away and go back to P/P to re-apply venoms and, if needed, retreat.

Here’s a link to the build (copy and paste to the URL line):

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmkMMmzz0ovwxMovMxmx9MxaVRqMRqc

Comments? Suggestions? Any obvious synergies I’m forgetting/missing?

Anything that helps people match up for team-based events (Dungeons particularly) is appreciated. Love that DE’s remove the *need to team, but instanced events require them, so some sort of matchmaking is needed please.

Why would you be able to see a glow when it’s set to “off”? Seems the opposite would be true (??)

Azulia.1745:

Blueshield.6291:

Astralporing.1957:

4. city waypoints are always free.

With no reasonable alternatives to the waypoint system, it’s highly unfortunate that aspects of the game design push players towards using a system which is so grossly overpriced.

Amen! Please consider changing this. If you craft and need to explore to gather mats, you go broke.

You just contradicted yourself… the ONLY way to gather and efficiently gather mats is to NOT use the waypoints, and instead kill everything along the way and farm every resource node as you walk from place to place. :P

I do, however, completely agree with the sentiment about waypointing actively DISCOURAGING the social aspect of the game – I’ve found myself on several occasions deciding to not assist someone (either calling for help on map chat or even a guildie I don’t know very well) because I’m in the middle of Bumfart Egypt and the travel cost all the way to wherever I need to go (then back again) is several silver at my highest character’s level.

At the VERY least, major city waypoints should (IMHO) be free, and perhaps the more outlying zones should have a cost – you can justify it in the lore as being a “higher cost of maintaining such an obscure node” or something if you like. That way, at least I can choose to resurrect at a “free” node, which very well might be further from where I died, or pay a fee to use a more “remote” node (which is likely closer to where I got ganked). It does indeed feel like a “double death tax”. =(

Waypoint travel is just about the ONLY thing I actively enjoy much, much less in GW2 vs. GW1 (I loved the travel system in the original game personally).

Fishing would add another type of resource harvesting… sure why not? Of course, this would mean a MAJOR overhaul to the crafting system, so I wouldn’t hold my breath, but…

Drasleona.5049:

no really, why do you need it? its like addons for other games like WOW. they had addons, and the people stopped playing the game but became a game of press the UI

I gave several reasons why – guess you didn’t bother reading. Don’t like/want them? Don’t use them – easy enough. Me, I’d like a nice, little 5 or 6-slot “utility belt” area for the stuff I don’t want to bother with opening the full UI pane to access. Guess gawd-like playerz like you don’t need that kind of help. Gratz.

I always name my pets “Gabe” and “Tycho” – short and easy to type (and re-type, and retype, and re-type). that said, I WOULD like to be able to just save the ^%$#@! thing – it’s semi-ludicrous that they haven’t fixed such a BASIC thing. Gah!

Mounts (IMHO) would be a GREAT addition, but only if the following things were true:

1. No flying mounts – as it is, WvW relies VERY heavily on walls and gates, and even if you allowed mounted combat (see next point), it would be far, far too easy to blitzkrieg an attack force over the walls using flying mounts. The entire concept of WvW would need to be re-thought, making them far to expensive (in development time).

2. Mounted combat is a MUST – if (as was suggested earlier), “mounts” were simply a new form of mobile combat, with added lethality and movement speed, then that would actually give rise to different tactics in PvP and WvW.

In WvW, to be a useful strike force, players would have to form “cavalry” units with unique strengths and weapons (lances, trample attacks, etc.) that would have to be weighed against specific weaknesses (perhaps increased damage from bow attacks, special counter skills designed to panic mounts or even a % chance for mounts to “spook” when attacked with something as simple as a fire-based attack, etc.).

In PvP, certain areas (with rocky terrain, or with sharp height changes) would basically be impassible by mounts travelling at anything faster than walking speed. Combine this with the “weaknesses” listed above (to archers, to spook attacks) and you’d definitely have an effective counter to a mounted player.

I can DEFINITELY see that working, and being well-worth the increased development time, since it would be much, much more than simply a way to get from point A to point B.

majorkong.9073:

Here’s how my Mystic Forging worked out tonight. I placed buy orders for my materials this morning which took me about 5 minutes.

I logged on tonight, and I’d purchased about 32g worth of materials through the buy orders.

I combined all of the materials in the forge, and it took me about 30 minutes to do so. It was roughly 220 combines. From those combines, I received 111 items that I either posted on the TP or sold to a vendor. (The other combines resulted in items that I recombined.)

I posted my items on the TP for a total of 53g49s03c. It’s a liquid market, and the vast majority of these items will be sold within 24 hours.

After TP fees, I project to gross 45g26s68c, and I also vendored 17s worth of items as well. So my profit projects to be about 13g50s or so. Even if I have to relist a few of my items, that should cost me no more than about 10-20s in extra fees.

So let’s call it 13g in profit for five minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening. I projected 12.13g profit in my earlier post, so Zommoros smiled just a little bit on me today.

About 80% of the time that I do this, it works out roughly like this. The other 20% of the time there’s a lot of competition for materials and my buy orders don’t get filled too well so I either skip that day or work one of the less liquid markets with less competition.

It’s a bad day to buy wine… but a fine day to drink it.

Man, majorkong, lemme say that I have NO IDEA how you figure this sort of thing out, but I tip my hat to you for doing so. I’d be thrilled if I could figure out a reliable way to get a TENTH of the returns that you do.

For me, the MF seems, well, MAGIC, so I’ve not played with it much (on the grounds that I don’t have enough resources to level my main’s crafting skills as it is, not even considering “loosing” stuff in the Forge in exchange for nonprofitable stuff), but obviously you have a different perspective than us “mere mortals”. You’ve definitely figured out a meta-game here that seems well worth playing. Kudos!

Jezath.7395:

I agree this doesent seem pointless, i could fill five extra slots easy….

Also along the same lines, it would be nice for 2 hero screen combat dolls. At the moment we have one combat and one town doll with slots… I would like to be able to upgrade with gems to 2 combat dolls so i can switch entire armor sets at click of a button.

Not a bad idea, but I’d add this as a stand-alone request, as it’s very different than what I had in mind (more like Weapon Switching, but with armor than a general “utility belt” sort of thing). That said… I’d certainly use it!!

I’m not having much issue in there… not being able to waypoint IS a pain, but I can usually just run back to wherever I died. Well… MOST of the time. Of course, I have to be careful to not pull too much agro, but I look at that as a “you’re in a dangerous area so be careful!” thing more than anything. I’ve done 3 or 4 missions in my arc in that area so far, not all of them yet, so maybe they get worse?

This would be a great thing to make as a special kind of rare dye (but obviously you’d need to change dye so it can be applied to weapon skins as well as armor pieces). For a great use of auras, I’d check out the old City of Heroes game – they had great effects like “fire”, “smoke”, radiation", “sparkles” and others, all of which could be colorized. And not just for PvP, either…

Definitely second this idea – I LOVED getting presents on my characters. I’d actually recommend keeping them as character-level items – I ended up adding 3 or 4 extra character slots to my GW1 account just because I didn’t want to delete older characters that I seldom used but I wanted to keep getting presents for. More character slots = more $ for A-Net, so…

I’d like to request an enhancement: optional, moveable hot bars. Can come from an item (like a “utility belt” or other equippable item), or can just be something that can be added as an optional UI element. I see it as a small 4- or 5- item extra set of icons that, when clicked, use an item or consumable, or equip a piece of gear. This would NOT offer more Inventory space (items would still need to be placed into the inventory screen), they’d just allow me a “short cut” to access them on-demand.

I’d love something like this for when I want to:

• Keep food handy for dungeons – it’s a pain to have to open my inventory, then locate my food, especially in the middle of big fights. I usually carry around 3 or 4 different food items, but usually forget to use them because they’re buried at the “bottom” of my inventory screen.

• Use certain consumables like the Ash Legion Spy Kit (useful as a 10-second panic button in PvE but only if you keep the inventory screen open so you can rapidly-access the item)

• Put my minipets on a special little bar so I can flip between them when RPing.

• On my Warrior or even my Ranger, keep seldom-used weapons that I carry around with me but usually don’t have time to swap to.

• Etc.

If you really want to make me happy, just allow me to invoke as many as I want, which I can drag around on the UI wherever I want to place them.

How about it? Pleeeeeze?

According to the wiki, it’s all of the above (but tooltips are still notoriously vague and are being improved):

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Disable

Last time I checked, extra character slots (which have a base 20-slot bag + extra slots which can be filled with relatively cheap 8- or 12-slot extra bags) were the cheapest “extra storage” option. Plus that way you have more space for alts.

Kaon.7192:

I see it as a matter of morality and sustainability.

I don’t understand the “morality” argument at all… The drop rate for good items from BLCs is well known (read as: it’s basically a lottery ticket), and they’re in NO WAY mandatory for anyone to play and experience all the game content, and people are obviously still buying them, so… (((scratches head))). Of course, I’ve only bought maybe half a dozen scratch-off lottery tickets in my entire life, and don’t understand why people do THAT either, so…

The thing that really REALLY gets me is why ANYONE would spend that much money on ANY sort of in-game item. Even if a BLC had a chance to drop a magic flying unicorn/pegasus that ran on rainbows and crapped gold, which gave a blanket +100% increase in all weapons and skill bonuses, I wouldn’t drop $300, $400, or more on trying to get one. Hell, even if the drop rate was 100% for that much money I wouldn’t buy one, let alone the marginal quality-of-life improvements offered (on-demand banker? really?).

Cymatoperior.5942:

Permanently reduce the gem cost of everything. Problem solved.
Ok id better explain. Right now the gem to gold ratio is high so less people will want to change gold for gems. On the other hand people paying real cash wont want to buy gems to exchange for gold because the gem to gold ratio is still not high enough for them. So the best way out for Nexon to make money and for the penniless players to continue to change gold to gems is to drop the gem cost of everything.
I doubt anyone wants to use real cash to pay for gems just to buy your chests and other items by the way, they’d rather exchange gems for gold. At least I would.

See, as a player with not much free time, I’d be willing to pay real cash for two reasons:

1. Because I literally, as someone with a 60-hour work week have literally more money than time and

2. Because I know that if I play for 100 hours at a time I do NOTHING to help ANet keep the game running. Less real money in their pockets = less funds for artists, level builders, skinners, writers, programmers, etc. and if the game folds than I can’t play any more.

That said, the current exchange rate for real $ → gems is still too high for me given the relatively low number of interesting things to purchase with them. When they get more like GW1 costumes and other non-gameplay, visual-only stuff I might, but there’s no way in hell I’m spending more than $10 or $20 every month or two ( or more) on things like BLC keys. I banked $50 in gems in expectation of the “black Sunday deals” and was, sad to say, pretty dissapointed.

How “Legendary” would it be if you could spend a long weekend grinding it out? I played GW1 for YEARS – personally I think it’s kinda cool that I might be working towards something for that long. I assume that special events will help us towards one to keep us coming back , but so long as those events are fun and imaginative I’m OK with looking towards the long road…

I dunno man… Reading all the “I opened 300G worth of chests…” and “well I just dropped 500G on chests…” threads and replies to threads like this and I don’t see why ANet should change ANYTHING. I mean, they’re obviously raking it in from a certain percentage of the base. Look at it this way: everyone playing dropped $60 at minimum just to play, just like a single-player game. However, unlike a standard SP game, ANet has to pay to maintain the servers, as well as to develop a stream of new content. All this costs money. Lots and lots of money. So long as people are effectively paying hundreds if not thousands of real dollars on such an efficient revenue generator then they’d literally be idiots to stop, and the rest of us (the people who just have fun, you know, PLAYING) benefit greatly. Once people stop buying then perhaps there will be a change but…

Bottom line is that dyes and such will certainly be on sale…. but only when people stop buying them in packs like they’re offering now. So long as they’re selling, there’s no incentive to change things – in fact they’re DISincentivised to do so, since changing may result in worse sales. Personally I wish they’d discounted USEFUL things like character slots, bank tabs, etc. – I bought $50 in gems in expectation of buying stuff, almost all I which is still in gem form, since I didn’t get anyhing but one pack of BL keys just for laughs. Definitely WONT do that next time, which is too bad because I want to support the game via USEFUL purchases…

Most goods cost the most in the R&D phase – don’t believe me try getting a product that will only retail for $1 off the ground. It might only cost .$15/unit to manufacture, but only after spending hundreds of thousands to design, tool, research, market, etc. Callong out digital items as having no “unit cost” ignores all the REAL cost.

Due respect to those who feel “cheated” by these chests (or the cash shop model in general), but many of you seem to have NO idea about how the real world works.

YES there is so a “production cost” for new items. Anything added to a game requires programmers, artists, QA testers, IT folks, writers, etc. all of who get paid for their work. Just because an item is “virtual” doesn’t mean that it doesn’t represent many, many man-hours of work to create.

If you don’t feel the items are worth the cost, don’t buy them, or feel free to post a non-ranting thread on how you’d have preferred them to be. I guarantee people are watching the market to see what people respond to. I’m MUCH happier buying items on the shop to support the game than having to pay a sub fee, but do agree that they’re still not quite there yet re: the “sweet spot” between coolness and value, but I’m sure they’ll get there. For now the bulk of my extra $ purchases have been for things like character slots and bank tabs, but as soon as they get more items like the old GW1 costume skins or something equally cool, I’m sure I will do those, too…

Emphasis on “small” hehehe…. Here’s hoping they’ll discount it

Can we pay a small premium to upgrade perhaps?

The final event was literally the ONLY thing all weekend I didn’t DC from. Everything on Day 1 and Day 2 was missed, despite the fact that I was parked in LA a half-hour before the start of the event, waiting. VERY frustrating (but at least I did get my big Karka chest). I would have liked to experience the rest though and get… whatever you were supposed to get. Lord knows I wasn’t getting DROPS from anything on that ^%$#@! island…

It’ll be built up – give them time guys. We JUST re-took it from the Karka (kinda).

GlockworK.2954:

So I don’t think you can give individual songs for every boss. I think I heard that you can put a few songs in it and it would randomly cycle through them. Not 100% sure on that though.

Since M3U files are specifically designed to create ordered playlists, I’d assume that if you had multiple files in the list, they’d play in the order that they appear in the M3U file. Can someone confirm?

Jobe.6721:

Yes you put the song from Star Trek of Kirk fighting Spock during boss fights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHAOkDamRzU

Brilliant!!! Saved it as my “BossBattle” playlist – can’t wait to try it out!

Depends on what you want to do. Rangers in PvE are still definitely viable and (I think) fun to play. Longbow is still a great support weapon, with good damage (esp. when you get Quickening Zephyr and can really unload on someone with attack #2) and the on-demand AOE debuff. Even impressive knockback with attack #4 (I love using it to knock mobs to their deaths off ledges and other high places – you have to think tactically). Shortbow, while weaker than it was at launch, is still a fun mobility weapon with good DPS (again, in a PvE environmement). Plus only Rangers get pets, which are great to collect and use.

Naturally if you’re mostly here for PvP then yeah, it’s all about fractions of a second and killing someone while you still have 25 health left more often than not, and in that way Ranger DOES seem like the red-headed step-child lately. I think they’ll eventually balance it out, but until then it sounds like you may experience some frustration in PvP zones. The current FOTM are Mesmers and glass-canon Thieves, but who knows if that will last? Typically FOTM’s dont.

Quarktastic.1027:

And the greatsword buff was still a minor one…considering the weapon still cuts like a dead fish.

I don’t know if I’d call it THAT weak, but it’s definitely not the melee weapon I prefer… it just FEELS weaker than anything else, even sword, which at least does some cool condition/dodging stuff and allows for different combos with the off-hand.

Quarktastic.1027:

As for the buff to our speargun…did we really need to deal more damage underwater? Is there even any meaningful underwater content to experience?

Actually, I’ve done some pretty cool (PvE) stuff underwater, so I welcome the buff to the speargun. After lvl 40 or so I began to avoid underwater unless I saw others were grouping because I was noticeably weaker on DPS overall, even if I had the best -possible weapon for my current level. Can’t wait to try out some of the stuff I skipped, actually…

That said, I would have preferred improvements to my MAIN WEAPONS (SB and LB specifically, in that order…)

Corpus.5347:

Guys, it is rare for a representative of the company to give us any kind of information about what may be coming up as far as changes, tweaks , buffs and nerfs.

No… this is absolutely INCORRECT. All I can guess is you’ve never played an MMO before. ANY and EVERY game that has PvP has learned (some sooner than others) that all tweaks and changes MUST be communicated to the player base, otherwise they have this sort of foaming-at-the-mouth crap. As a primarily PvE player I don’t notice so much, but the PvP’ers are just SO freaking sensitive to any sort of change…

This is why the better MMOs put up a test server, and then put proposed changes up well in advance of actual implementation into the general population – with players testing for them and gathering stats, outright bad idea changes can be nipped in the bud, and others, which just need adjustment, can be adjusted before impacting the population at large. I’m sure they’ll figure this out sooner or later. by then, the more “sensitive” PvPers will have gone elsewhere (maybe… possibly…) but hopefully they have a certain degree of attrition baked into the business model until then…

I haven’t purchased any dungeon gear yet but I’m JUST about to – will see if I can confirm. Sounds likely since at the same time the OP was having aggro issues (in 2 pieces of dungeon gear) I was not. Will advise…