Guild Wars 2

Unless I’ve missed one, it’s the only scythe model in the game isn’t it? Seems pretty eye-catching to me. I was just admiring it last night with a guildie, we both thought it looked cool. Personally I hate that bow. The shield stands out but I don’t feel the need to buy it for an alt. I would like the scythe & the greatsaw for my mesmer. (Ranger main.)

I like the scythe /shrug.

Because GMT is the universal timezone from which all other timezones are derived.

So you’re going to make fraudulent credit card chargebacks because you didn’t get an item you wanted in your RNG chests? Seriously?

No-one “screwed you over” but yourself. You received exactly what you purchased and you have no-one to blame but yourself if you overspent on random chance items.

If they’re only giving the times in one format it should be GMT.

Is Arachnophobia meant to be better than the others or something? Personally I hate Arachnophobia and I don’t want it for my ranger. I bought the recipe for The Crossing to make it for an alt.

If you don’t like the idea of chests why, oh why spend so much on them and then complain about it?

If they see a few threads of people complaining about chests and then see that they sold 50,000 of them the logical conclusion is that the majority of players like the chests because they are buying them.

Rather than buying 100 chests and then saying you’ll send them a message by never buying from the store again, why didn’t you just buy a fixed item like a costume in the first place? Or convert to gold and buy the weapon from the TP? Then they can clearly see which is more popular, chests or fixed items.

The chest skins aren’t all expensive in the TP, I got a shoulder skin for 90 silver. If you did spend 100 chests worth of gems you could easily have gotten even the greatsaw if you’d converted to gold.

You weren’t sold a chest of Halloween items, you were sold a normal chest with a chance of Halloween items. That’s what the patch notes say.

You get a set of costume pieces which are account bound. You can’t generate extra pieces for alts or replacement pieces in case of accidental deletion unfortunately.

So Anet know for future events – I would really like to see more scavenger hunts and riddles please. This one was fun.

The town decor is brilliant and the haunted doors are a nice touch.

If they made them a rare drop that would require you to farm. As it is, you can farm and then use the gold to buy the skins from the TP.

Sentinel VX.1392:

Lexy.3912:

Sentinel VX.1392:

… I always want at least a unique skin as a “souvenir” that I can earn with or without spending real money(gems in this case). This skin should not be hard to get but at least require a descent amount of effort during the event unlike getting a legendary or something like that.

And with 3 Acts worth of unknown content still to come, how can you possibly know that you won’t get this?

I can’t tell but so far I only got a lame book that has a low stats.

Lets just see how it goes. If they really give use skins or whatever it is, then it should at least fix the issue.

Lame book with low stats? You said you wanted a unique skin as a souvenir. That’s exactly what you go. Plus the free devil horns. Who cares about the stats?

You mean the costume? Gem store. It’s a town clothes set with costume brawl abilities. It costs 700 gems for the set and it’s account bound.

Or if you mean the stuff at the top of this page http://www.gw2db.com/search?search=mad+King%27s#t1:items

No idea, must be from one of the unreleased acts.

Hughs.6549:

The ONLY difficulty in getting a legendary weapon is to get precursors from the RNG toilet of the mystic forge. Precursors can be bought, indirectly with real money.

Whether or not it’s difficult is irrelevant in a discussion about pay to win. You can’t buy karma, you can’t buy map completion, you can’t buy dungeon tokens. You cannot complete a legendary without playing the game. Assuming for a minute that something that gives you no performance advantage can be called pay to win – if it was pay to win you would need nothing but a credit card to complete the legendary.

Radene.3194:

Kana.6793:

Some thing rare like a diamond is special. Something that takes work and skill like an Olympic medal is special. Something that most people can’t afford like a Ferrari is special. There are special skins in the game that fit each of those criteria. Halloween weapons, Legendary weapons, Cultural T3 for example. The OP asked a general question about rare skins.

I don’t really understand why your post sounds so hostile? I don’t have any Halloween weapon skins and I haven’t bought a single chest. I just opened some with the few keys I had sitting in the bank from story quests and drops and got the usual chest junk.

Chests are a waste of money, just as lottery tickets are. I’ll never pay for either since I know full well I’ll never win. Far more sensible to just buy the things from the TP. They aren’t soulbound.

Why so hostile you ask?

Well, the most accurate answer would be something that reaches far beyond the scope of this game, and has a lot to do with my worldview. But let’s say I’ve been “around” and that’s made me cynical.

So all I can do is say again, I don’t mind things taking effort.

What I do mind is elitism.

It would be elitist if they made you do a difficult dungeon in blues without dying and then a lore exam about GW1 before selling you a key. Everyone can buy a key, everyone has the same chance of getting an item.

Radene.3194:

Kana.6793:

I would be highly annoyed since I already spent a lot on getting the recipes for the permanent crafted version.

Well, to use the usual argument used against people who are critical toward the current status quo, “Sucks to be you lol!”

Or in other words, it’s amusing to see how people still expect an MMO to cater to them precisely, sod everyone else, even after a near decade of the genre being mainstream.

What are you on about? I expect them not to take my gold and then change the product. Just as I would expect them not to sell chests and then remove the Halloween items before people open the chests. Hardly catering to me precisely.

What does the genre being mainstream have to do with anything?

Radene.3194:

So the skins being “rare” is not the reason for them being special, the fact that they took a lot of effort is. Just like in real life! I mean, if I work hard to buy my own car, let’s say, a modest Nissan Micra, it will still be special, even if millions of people have the same kind of car.

See, I’m down with that. I’m down with “special” things taking effort and dedication. What I am not down with is this “I have mine but now I have to make sure nobody else gets it or I won’t be special anymore” hogwash. What I am not down with, is things being a lottery.

What I am especially not down with, is people who think having won the lottery somehow elevates them above the masses of “noobs”, “bads” and “whatever else insult you can come up with to validate yourself over others”.

Some thing rare like a diamond is special. Something that takes work and skill like an Olympic medal is special. Something that most people can’t afford like a Ferrari is special. There are special skins in the game that fit each of those criteria. Halloween weapons, Legendary weapons, Cultural T3 for example. The OP asked a general question about rare skins.

I don’t really understand why your post sounds so hostile? I don’t have any Halloween weapon skins and I haven’t bought a single chest. I just opened some with the few keys I had sitting in the bank from story quests and drops and got the usual chest junk.

Chests are a waste of money, just as lottery tickets are. I’ll never pay for either since I know full well I’ll never win. Far more sensible to just buy the things from the TP. They aren’t soulbound.

Skins don’t help you do events faster, they don’t help you do dungeons faster, they don’t help you win WvW.

They’re not pay to win any more than you can “win” WoW by buying a celestial horse or a moonkin hatchling.

@Hughs “Pay to get a legendary (the ultimate goal of this game)? yeah it’s kinda pay to win.”

How exactly are you going to buy all the karma, the dungeon gift, the mystic forge RNG and the world completion in the gem store?

I would be highly annoyed since I already spent a lot on getting the recipes for the permanent crafted version.

I reeeeally don’t like spiders, so I’m glad they didn’t fill LA with realistic looking ones!

Joiry.2504:

So, my questions, in summary – does a skin really have to be owned by just a few people to make it special?

Yes, same as pretty much any real world product (excluding things that are special for sentimental reasons of course).

Skins that take a lot of work or skill to get (rather than RNG) are of course a lot more special, but if they’re challenging to get then the result is still that only a few people will have them.

It was quite obvious what to do, go to the big pumpkin on the map and then read what you’re given.

I thought the riddles were a lot of fun. I did the scavenger hunt with a friend and normally he finds all seasonal events boring, but we both enjoyed this.

zxosz.4097:

@kana because that is the way this world works

Ok. Well it’s also the way this world works that you can’t have everything. Especially if you’re unable to put either a lot of time or a lot of money into getting it.

The casual players can do the event chain / scavenger hunt, carve pumpkins, participate in costume brawl by using tonics or by jumping in the cauldron in LA… you know… do the actual holiday activities.

Why does everything have to be about getting stuff all the time.

I got both, they’re pretty cool. The abilities are fun. The Mad King one in particular looks very elaborate. I also love how each one gives a pet to summon while you wear the costume.

Can’t see any timers on them, it was my understanding of the dev comments that they are permanent, you just have a limited time to buy them before they’re removed from the store.

mazze.3705:

I bought them for 500gems in hope for them to be sellable in the future since old seasonal minis usually have much value.

It says in the description before you buy them that they’re account bound.

Pennry.9215:

Kana.6793:

@ Pennry

Huh? Why does everything have to cost the same? They’re catering to all price brackets so there are cheap and easy to get items, items that take a bit of work and expensive items for those who like a long term goal. What’s wrong with having something for everyone?

A Gold grind with a built in Gem to Gold conversion is nothing “long term”. But that’s aside the point. The point is: Everywhere else one can get level 80 armor skins cheaper and a majority of them are actually Exotic and useful. All through leveling too, do they show you easy gear. AreaNet’s own campaign was that there would be no “grind” and getting armor, etc would be easy enough for everyone. Why then the sudden jump in price? Tiers 1 and 2 show a decent progression in price, why not keep to that scheme? Heck, they could even go as far as calculate how many dungeon runs it takes to get each piece and how much Gold you can get from those runs. That is of course if you want them cheaper. I’d actually like to see everything else made more expensive, but 30g for Rare 80s is just ridiculous. Make them slightly cheaper and make them on par as Exotics, or bring everything else to par with them.

Getting armour is easy enough for everyone. They didn’t say all armour would be easy. There is no required grind gating you out of dungeons or any other content. And yes the cheaper gear is useful, this gear isn’t useful because it’s purely a vanity item to show that you have a lot of money.

As for gem conversions for gold, I suppose a few people might do it. Personally I think it’s insane to spend hundreds of pounds on game armour so I certainly won’t be doing it.

The useful, exotic armour is cheap and easily available in a short space of time. The weak, show-off armour is expensive. They’re rare and expensive because they only exist to display wealth. They have no other advantage or use.

If they change anything about the T3 it should be to make them work like the HoM skins, since they are just skins. Then maybe people won’t be confused by the rare stats any more.

Shinzan.2908:

If the same content was avaliable though the whole length of the time given I wouldn’t mind, don’t care about getting to do it first if I can still do it later. But this was posted by an Anet employee in another topic:

ColinJohanson.2394:

And finally, make sure to be around on Sunday October 28th mid-day pacific time, you’re NOT going to want to miss it!

This implies that if you aren’t there for the start of an event you’ll miss out and it’s not simply a case of getting to do it later.

Yeah, these are the things we need to know about, in advance and in a localised time / date format. And it needs to be on the launcher.

Filled some dungeon spaces with pug people and they’ve been very friendly so far. There’s often chatting in map chat, especially in LA. As for grouping for events, I haven’t seen much in low level zones, but Orr is full of LFG / LFM for karma farming groups. Low level zones still have plenty of map chat.

I do agree that server forums would be great, especially for guild recruitment since the guild section of the forum is a mess at the moment.

Server transfers do need to stop, it’s detrimental to WvW in particular. I don’t think being able to see the enemy names is beneficial though.

Lord Kelvin.8217:

I didn’t say to lower the price… the point is at that price the armor should be exotic! Otherwise I buy it only to show how cool I am, and when I’ve to fight I change to an exotic set… sad so sad…

No, you are meant to spend time saving up for it. By then you will already have an exotic set. You transmute the T3 looks onto your current exotic set.

Yeah I don’t know why people have such trouble understanding it. Working for vanity items is nothing new in gaming. Look at the success of TF2 hats. Even in WoW people put a huge amount of time into farming for < 1% drop mounts and raid mounts. They aren’t faster, they just look special and not many people have them.

Daryl.4621:

right im confused
If Anet are releasing it at 5pm PST 22nd october then that is 1am GMT 23rd october right?

1am BST (British Summer Time) 23rd October. We’re in daylight savings time for a few more days yet, which is GMT+1.

So if you’re in the UK, it’s just 1am tonight.

Blueroseknight.7954:

Cod Eye.1632:

Latinkuro.9420:

What is the point in having separate region servers if US times are gonna be used for EU servers anyway ?

X event launch Oct 22 US 8pm PST
X event launch Oct 22 EU 8pm GMT

If not done like this just merge the regions because there’s no freaking point to have them !

Agreed, I guess Anet have to favour their country men.

A company is using their own timezone to tell their community when they will be releasing an update? Sounds like an injustice to me.

It’s hardly an onerous task for them to update both regions with localised information. Blizzard manage it just fine, as do many other US companies with a global customer base.

@ Mirodir I spend a lot of time on the internet. But you are correct in that I don’t have US friends to play with, since I play on EU servers only.

To clarify my original post, I didn’t mean a US/EU split that would prevent guesting on US servers. Only the forum / event times / patch times should be split and localised to prevent inconvenience and confusion for most people.

People guesting on US servers and doing the events at their start times with American friends has no effect on anyone else, so I certainly don’t see any reason to prevent it

GADefence.5634:

Also stop using the american date/time format and use the ISO international one of YYYY/MM/DD or at least DD/MM/YYYY.

Yeah the back-to-front date is kind of annoying as well.

Stark.1350:

Can we please stop with the “I’m getting screwed” comments? What are we, 12? There’s no way to launch content where 100% of everyone, everywhere, can enjoy it evenly all the time.

The biggest problem is that we’ve had a few weeks of hype about an event starting on the 22nd. Nowhere on the site has it said (until now) that it’s only starting at 1am (or later) on the 23rd for EU players. Everyone was expecting it this evening.

WeLoveKanjimari.6725:

I’d agree on that point, but 8PM means I’m at work! I was so excited, not working until late today meant all day to play around with cool new stuff…but…nope. At work. :’(

Aaah, that sucks.

I also think the specific times for US & EU should be on the launcher, since a lot don’t read the forum or bother with Twitter. I’ll be very surprised if map chat in LA later isn’t nothing but “where’s Halloween?” every few minutes.

At least you only have to wait until 8pm. I was looking forward to it and now find it starts at 1am

They really do need to be more specific in advance, especially with regards to the EU players.

@arabeth

I got an email saying “From 23 October until 2 November (European dates), Halloween goes off the rails, and you’re exactly the right person to fix it.”

You must have the US email. Sometimes I get EU email, sometimes US email, sometimes one of each :S

Stevoli.8795:

Patches always happen around noon Pacific time, I’m not sure why people are expecting something different this time.

The patch is happening at 5pm Pacific time.

@ Lewis Burnell Midnight GMT is just midnight in the UK on normal time. Since we’re in daylight savings time at the moment it would be 1am.

Anet, please could you be a bit clearer with the dates and times for other regions instead of giving US information all the time.

All the information should be “x date, x time PST / x date, x time GMT” at least.

Long term it would be nice if you could split US & EU services completely the way Blizzard do, though I appreciate that might be too much expense and work at the moment.

I also really hope there won’t be time sensitive Halloween events that are on at ridiculous times for EU players because they’re done to suit the US. The beta weekend events ended at 8am on a Monday so most of us were unable to see them.

MercAngel.5492:

sry the OP is wrong here there is a gear treadmill as that is the only way i have found to get max stats gear and i would love for someone to show me wrong. show me a way to get max gear with out have to grind mats or gold for hours on end point me to the NPC that sells max stats gear for cheap show me max stats gear on the TP the does not sell for hundred’s of gold

Hundreds? O.o Most of the crafted stuff in the TP was < 3g per piece last time I looked.

That’s also not a gear treadmill. A gear treadmill means you run after the gear forever because as soon as you get the best stat’s something better is released.

@ Pennry

Huh? Why does everything have to cost the same? They’re catering to all price brackets so there are cheap and easy to get items, items that take a bit of work and expensive items for those who like a long term goal. What’s wrong with having something for everyone?

@ Tosha Daydreamer & @ beren

I was just responding to this:

How is using an English word on a North American server equivalent to going to France and saying something offensive in French?

I have no idea if there’s any localisation on the filter based on server grouping or not, but it seems logical to have it to me. NA servers would be sort of international, but mostly in terms of Oceanic players I would have thought? So French Canadians are the only reason I can think of to censor bite there.

If all the censor filters are global and the word is censored on NA servers because it needs to be censored on the French servers then that’s pretty silly. I can’t imagine there would be many French people playing on an NA server.

French censoring should just apply to French servers since they have dedicated servers.

@ beren, there are a lot of people on the EU English servers who don’t have their own language server so I agree that some of the worst words in Scandinavian languages / Dutch etc should probably be filtered there.

@ Tosha, yes adults would likely ignore it, as you say. Anet probably need to cover their bases in case they get complaints from parents though, given the rating on the game.

It’s like Vabbian armour in GW1. It’s prestigous because it’s expensive. There’s no rush to get it, and until you have enough there are the 2 other cultural tiers and the order armour. It’s a long term goal.

Some people said they don’t think it looks that good, it doesn’t matter – the cost matters. Same reason people buy £500 designer handbags that are actually quite ugly.

Um, rather than involving France, wouldn’t it be more the case the you can’t use the word on NA servers because you might offend French Canadians?

Should be unlocked with certain WvW achievements or something.

Yeah times should be in GMT really. It is the universal time after all.

27 and over 500 hours played. Love it so far.

DinoDoll.3682:

out of curiosity..

if you don’t want to be reliant on a pet… and… want to be able to use a rifle instead of a bow. /why/ do you want to be a ranger at all? i mean.. there is already a medium armour class that isn’t reliant on a pet, and can use a rifle.. it is an engineer. So why not be that?

also “traits” wise, it seems to me that you can make a ranger build that’s less reliant on your pet. isn’t that what the “Skirmishing” trait does? Possibly “marksmanship” too?

i admit i’m not a guru when it comes to “best possible builds” for each profession, but it seems like there are options to decrease your reliance on a pet already.

Even if you fill those trees the pet still makes up a significant part of your dps output, sadly. You also have to take 15 points in beast mastery to reduce the pet swap cooldown, since the only way to keep it alive is is by frequent swapping.

Rangers are more reliant on pets and take more pet micro than WoW hunters and in GW1 you could actually remove the pet from your build entirely, so people might not have been expecting quite such an emphasis on them.

You also can’t stow the pet if you need it out of the way for certains fights in dungeons since any damage (even fall damage!) brings it back out again. The AI is quite dodgy and they have an awful tendancy to run in front of the ranger at random intervals, which is just great for ninja pulls. The F2 ability is also still quite unresponsive, though it’s improved since launch.