Guild Wars 2

Thanks, LithePanther! I want to pick both of your posts as the answer but it’s not letting me. :/ But I really appreciate your input!

Dasorine.1964:

when you say “no pistols” and such, i assume your holing other items instead with same amount of precision?

as sigil of accuracy currently does not effect hero panel

Thanks for the replies, LithePanther and Dasorine. Hahaha, the loss of precision from the pistols was exactly what was causing the change in my crit chance display. :P Don’t know why that didn’t occur to me.

Good to know. So I shouldn’t expect to see my 5% in the hero panel but one (not both) of my sigils are working. Time to decide on a different sigil to put on one of the guns.

Thanks!

Marge, glad you enjoyed them! I feel the same way! I got Factions as a birthday gift, and it was my first GW game, at a very formative time in my life, too. I still play GW1, otherwise I would miss it too much!

Ratphink.4751:

People really need to read some Edward Said’s work on Orientalism (and I mean an actual book/essay, not a Wikipedia Article) and realize that representing the East, especially from a Western point of view, is not easy and can be very problematic. Cantha is very much included in this, despite however much you guys want to think it is flawless.

I’m very familiar with Said and his theories of Orientalism. I have read a bit of his own work and definitely a lot of the literature to which his critique applies. (I’m a lit major and soon-to-be grad student. ;P) I agree it’s very important to bring this into the discussion.

Personally I’m not saying Cantha is perfect, I’m saying it means a lot to me. That doesn’t mean I don’t look at it intelligently.

I think leaving it out of the game is not the answer to avoiding Orientalism. Including it and giving it a complex and sensitive portrayal would be better, although naturally much more challenging.

It’s also important to consider how many Asian devs or devs with Asian heritage worked on Factions and are currently part of the Anet team. This is not a cut-and-dried case of westerners creating their fantasy of Asia.

I would hope and expect Anet to be sensitive to the problem when recreating a Canthan expansion. But in light of GW2’s emphasis on tolerance, I would expect this to be a wonderful opportunity to overcome the issue, rather than a danger of falling face-first into it. I am confident Anet would have the same sensitivity as they have in the current game’s portrayal of interracial conflicts, same-sex relationships, and gender equality. No, it’s not easy, but they have done an admirable job so far of overcoming stereotypical and problematic images in fantasy. Any game where we have Kalla Scorchrazor, Caithe and Faolain, and so many other examples seamlessly worked into the world without it being a political sledgehammer is remarkable and gives me respect for the Anet team.

TL;DR: I regard whitewashing Guild Wars and leaving out Asian elements to be just as wrong as including Asian elements in a way that construes them as “other” and falls into the problematic view Said calls Orientalism. I believe Anet has shown they can do a good job portraying Cantha, if given the chance.

Everything I’ve read on forums and the wiki says sigils like accuracy and force do not stack. But when my engineer dual wields pistols, each with a Superior Sigil of Accuracy, my hero panel is telling me otherwise.

No pistols: 39% crit chance
One pistol with Sup. Accuracy: 43% crit chance
Two pistols with Sup. Accuracy: 47% crit chance

So according to this, I’m getting +4% (not +5%) for each pistol equipped, and they do stack.

Understandably these numbers are very confusing. Is the interface bugged and reporting this wrong? Or is there a problem with the +5% number listed on the sigil or the info we know on how sigils stack? Or do I just not understand sigil stacking correctly?

If anyone has an answer for this I would really appreciate it! If not, maybe it’s time to file a bug report.

In case you all haven’t seen these yet, I thought you might like a look at what we so narrowly missed out on having in Divinity’s Reach. Some screenshots have survived around the ’net.

You can see them here and here. (Sorry to have to simply link them, the forums don’t like me today and I’m having some trouble adding the images to my post. :P )

That was the completely finished Canthan district that was removed at the last minute. If you visit the Great Collapse area now, you can see exactly how it matches up with the pictures. The surrounding walls are the same, just a big hole instead of all these lovely Canthan buildings.

So sad, and what a waste of the artists’ wonderful efforts.

Edit: typos!

Sarys.6520:

What about an nostalgic and musical way ?
This is my attempt : http://youtu.be/gTSBZstMZss

Beautiful! Wow, Sarys, thank you so much for sharing your creativity with us! This is awesome!

Nostalgia lump in my throat now..must go play Factions.

Leohan.1096:

These topics and conversations, about Anet ignoring the core and lore of Guild Wars for the sake of making NcSoft happy makes me not want to spend money on the game. I have given Anet plenty of dollars, Collectors Edition and thousands of gems bought with cash already.

I really encourage everyone posting to read the dev responses we’ve gotten in this very thread from Josh Foreman. The thought of not having Cantha back makes me want to cry, I am totally with you. But I think we all have a tendency to react to the shocking news without having a chance to look at the facts we have learned about the situation.

What we know:
- From Josh’s interview – Devs had to remove the Canthan sector of Divinity’s Reach at the last minute. They received negative feedback from Asia due to the mixture of Chinese and Korean architecture styles.
- From Josh’s posts here: Cantha could be years away (us: Nooo! ), but there are designers at Anet who would love to work on it again. NCSoft does give them a remarkable amount of creative freedom and when they approach Canthan design again, who knows? Maybe it won’t be a problem, or maybe there will be design tweaks that can be made so that they are allowed to include Cantha.
- From a YouTube comment by someone claiming to have had a conversation with a dev in-game, for which we have no source: "NCsoft was firm in its decision to stay away from “Asian” themes and keep it “universal.” I’m not getting on OP’s case here for quoting this—I’m glad we’re having this discussion, and major props to OP for starting this thread! I’m just saying, we should take what is said in red posts and interviews over unsubstantiated comments on YouTube, referring to conversations with devs that we can’t document!

If we are going to pursue a successful campaign to get Cantha back, we need to arm ourselves with the facts!

For people just jumping into this thread, here’s a breakdown of accurate info we actually know from devs:

1. Red posts in this thread. Scan through and check out Josh Foreman’s posts here.

2. This interview with Josh. Possibly the original source for Edit:some of what OP is talking about?
Start listening around 1:41 and play to the end. Josh explains why the devs were forced to remove the Canthan District of Divinity’s Reach.

Still trying to track down the “keep it universal” quote. OP and others, we would love to know where you read this, please share. Anyone else with sources, please cite them for us here in the thread!

Josh Foreman.8250:

Indeed. I’ve been in this industry for 16 years and worked with a several publishers including Interplay, Sierra, THQ and now NCSoft. And for what it’s worth, the amount of creative freedom that NCSoft gives ArenaNet is MASSIVE compared to the others. NCSoft is crazy successful for a reason. They recognize the talent here and support us with a very hands-off policy in general. They give us a LOT of feedback and data to work with, but I’ve never got the impression that they are overlords like I have with the other publishers I’ve worked under.

Wow, that is great to know, and major respect to NCSoft for giving you all that kind of creative control. I guess this means we will stage peaceful protests instead of forming an angry mob at NCSoft’s corporate HQ. In light of the powerful and diverse design styles we see in GW2 and the incredible artistic quality of the game, I think the creative freedom you’re describing is not hard to see.

That does make it seem hopeful NC will reconsider their earlier decision and be open-minded. Hopefully they’ll set forth some realistic tweaks/compromises that will make it possible for you all to work on Cantha again!

Thanks as always for sharing your thoughts and participating in this thread! We will keep signing petitions and looking forward (for however long) to awesome new Cantha creations from you in the team one day. And hey, in the short term I hear we have a wicked new JP to look forward to!

I would love if all weapons and armor that are soulbound were account bound instead, the way harvesting tools are now. Altaholic that I am, it would be really helpful to be able to give my “younger” characters “hand-me-downs” instead of letting Zommoros eat so much useful soulbound gear. :P However, I realize re-gearing each character is probably an important gold sink to prevent inflation.

I would settle for very very nice items like Legendaries and those elite exotics you can craft in the forge being account-bound, so that if you work really hard for something, you can tote it on multiple characters. I’d like to craft Volcanus someday, and I have five characters and counting that can use greatswords. I don’t want to feel obligated to always play the character I soulbind Volcanus to and feel like it’s going to waste when I’m in the mood for an alt. I can imagine how people with Legendaries feel. :O

Account-wide karma would also be nice, and I would LOVE to see dye be account-bound like we initially thought they would.

Josh Foreman.8250:

That’s a very good way of putting it. I certainly don’t know where, when, or how the decision was made. I’m just a map artist. So I’m not in a position to critique it. I also don’t know the extent of the decision. For all I know it was some producer in Korea who doesn’t work there any more and the next time it’s brought up there will be no problem. Or maybe there will be one or two tweaks that will fix the problem. Who knows?

Thanks for continuing to contribute to this thread, Josh. We appreciate your replies! Thanks for giving us as much as explanation as you could. That does sound hopeful, at least. Without ourselves knowing the true situation and full extent of the decision, maybe we players shouldn’t fill in the blanks with “NCSoft Overlords perma-banned Cantha!?!?” I for one will try to stay open and keep hoping!

ShadowGryphon, hooray for your petition! I just signed. We can do this!

Just have to quote frostflare whose entire post expresses so well what I also feel:

frostflare.6390:

Cantha just has to come back. It just has too. I would do anything at this point right now to go there. I might even push someone off a cliff if it got me the expansion with cantha tomarrow.

Cantha was the most UNIQUE place in tyria to me. It introduced a sprawling metropolis that was litterly hundreds of years before it’s time. Yes, even I had trouble in Keining city. It was a nightmare. But you have to admit. WHERE ELSE did you feel that claustorphopic, confusing, and downright dangerousness. The city was slums, and it was dreary, and its atmosphere suited it so well.

This right here. No, Kaineng City was not always pretty or cozy. It was awe-inspiring. It was real. It immersed you in an incomparable way. When you consider the fact that it was inspired by the real Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong, you realize that it had to be squalid, terrifying, amazing, dangerous, in order to ring true, and that’s why its awesome. This also was a major part of the emotional appeal to me. You really felt and believed the people’s suffering and it made you feel more heroic by helping and proceeding through the story. You knew what you were fighting for. The series of small victories in the face of insurmountable societal obstacles, corruption and hardship made the game very realistic and meaningful to me. The sense of never-ending conflict makes for an amazing game and deep story.

Also, Kaineng City was just one region in the diverse map of Cantha…just IMAGINE Echovald on a Guild Wars 2 scale! Cathedrals and giant trees! Imagine underwater combat in the unfrozen Jade Sea! Imagine how beautiful pastoral Shing Jea would be or how awesome and luxurious the wealthy, beautiful districts of the city would look. If Shing Jea was not at the bottom of the sea, that is (please, please, please! Let Master’s Togo legacy survive!)

Also, from a lore perspective, the effort to overcome the xenophobia of Cantha would add a lot to the GW2 story, which focuses on all races learning to unite. If getting the lesser races of Tyria to join up against the dragons was a challenge, just imagine convincing a whole continent of isolationists that they have to give up prejudice in order to survive. Good story material there.

Yes, I would do anything to get Cantha back! Most especially pay for the expansion! Those making corporate decisions also need to know that people not only care about Cantha, we will make it profitable by financially supporting Anet, too!

Josh Foreman.8250:

Cantha was my favorite GW1 region to work on. And I worked on every GW release. I know a lot of the dev team loved it and would love to revisit it. I kinda agree with critickitten about the negative aspect of tight corridors. Most of that came from hitting technological limits while trying to keep the epic quality of the concept art. I think we could do some really amazing things with those themes in our new engine. Certainly nothing is ruled out. I certainly encourage anyone to express your desire for a Cantha region in GW2 in a positive and friendly way. It could be years away, but it’s worth asking for.

Oh, Josh, it makes me SO SAD to think of waiting years before we can go back to Cantha! Thank you for all the great work you and others did on the world of Factions, and thanks for your encouragement to us to keep hoping and asking!

Factions was my first Guild Wars game and the reason I feel in love with the world of Tyria. I still have such a deep emotional attachment to the story and the world…call me sentimental but it would be heartbreaking if such a beautiful project was never returned to in GW2. For the sake of all of the talented people who made Cantha a region we love so much, and the players who still get homesick for Shing Jea, Kaineng Center, House zu Heltzer and Cavalon…I sincerely hope Anet will not leave Cantha behind!

I will keep asking until we see it again!

Best. Monthly. Ever.

No WvW!!!

To the people at Anet who decided this, thank you sooo much! I love you! This will be the first monthly I actually get, and I’ve been playing since beta.

Well I am still having the issue and thought I would bump this. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Raine.1394:

Thanks for this suggestion, as I didn’t realize NPC’s counted. I am now letting NPC’s die so that I can revive them. Not great as a concept, but efficient in getting the cheeve. I really do appreciate your helpful tone though, very nice to encounter in-game or in-forum.

I’m really happy to hear the suggestion helped! And I sincerely hope your experience with the patch will improve as time goes on, or at least that the game will have other things to offer you and others who are disappointed that will still make it enjoyable.

I think Lutinz is right about the loot. Patch days or not, RNG is just one of those things. sigh Sometimes we get nice stuff, sometimes not. Maybe you will notice more of a loot improvement as you play longer and have a luckier day. Like Lutinz I got a lot of 75-80 blues and greens since patch, which I personally was happy to get as the sales add up fast. I went home with almost a gold in my inventory from merch trash and heart rewards after doing Diessa yesterday (and the 18s that was from the zone completion). Plus some Ori I salvaged off white items. :O Maybe you are just richer than me and that doesn’t make too much of a different for you. ^^ But for a casual like me, making anything close to a gold in a 15-25 zone seems decent! My guildie got insanely lucky and had 3 level 75-80 yellows drop in the same play session. We can all be jealous together.

Nappychappy.7046:

Weird, some how culling is magically fixed for you?

You must have a super computer /rolleyes

No, it’s not “fixed” because I have never had a significant problem with it, before or after the patch. That is, I have never noticed it that much, which must mean it hasn’t happened to me enough to be game-breaking for me. Since I don’t feel that I have personal experience with the issue, I can’t really weigh in on Raine’s experience with it or say whether it’s better/worse for players who are having trouble with it. That’s why I said I really can’t comment.

I wasn’t being sarcastic. :P

Edit: Sorry OP, I will get back on topic now. I just want to add the improved loot scaling is another thing that rocks about this patch. I do think that will help with the “empty zone” syndrome.

Erasculio.2914:

I did wish the dailies would actually give people to spread around the world. Having a daily saying “do 10 events in Ascalon”, or “kill 10 types of enemies in Kryta”, would really help to make people explore more of the GW2 world.

That’s a great idea! Maybe we’ll see that in future dailies, since they change now!

Also, the daily already changed and crafting isn’t a part of it anymore. No telling whether it will ever pop up again, either, so I wouldn’t worry too much. At this point we are discussing something that is already moot, aren’t we?

Whoot! Exotic accessories for karma! Just one more reason to love this update. Thanks for posting the info here for those of us who haven’t had a chance to check out Orr yet since the update.

Going to go get my condition engi those Dwayna trinkets ASAP.

Raine, have you tried reviving dead NPCs? They also count for the new daily, so if no players die around you, you can run around some heart events or DEs that frequently have dead NPCs. If you still have trouble finding ten dead NPCs to revive, keep in mind the daily will change again tomorrow. That’s what I find so nice about the new system. If you don’t like something, you’re not stuck with it, you can expect it to switch out and maybe be better the next day.

Sorry to hear you are having culling issues. I haven’t had any problems with that so I really can’t comment.

Personally I think the new dailies are awesome. We don’t have to do the same thing every day. All the goals are stuff you will probably do anyway just playing normally, and if not, they seem (at least to me) like fun challenges. Dodging was the hardest for me, but it was very good practice.

I did mine in Diessa too and it didn’t take long at all, just a bit longer than usual. Which made it a fun challenge, especially since the reward is also better now.

I’m a crafting nut and wish they had left that in. I was so excited there for a minute to see it included in another achievement besides master crafter. ^^ Oh well.

No offense intended to those of you sharing constructive criticism, but I’m surprised so many people are upset about the dailies changing. I think we all agree grind is bad, and having variety reduces grind. Also, replacing ye old “kill X number of things,” which was part of the daily before, with interesting goals that require some attention and gameplay seems like something people would like. Sorry to hear that not everyone feels that way.

Totally agree! I feel that Anet really got it right in this patch. So different from the karka tragedy. sniff

I think the new dailies are just right. The variety is lots of fun, and I’m looking forward to seeing what new tasks pop up every day. I like that it takes a little more effort to finish, too (which is fair, since they’ve added laurels to the reward). The changes add to the sense of accomplishment and make it a more fun, more rewarding, and less grindy goal to pursue. The rotating achievement goals also give me hope that there will be more choice to avoid activities you don’t like and earn the laurels doing only what you find fun, hopefully for monthlies too in the next update.

And since my main is an engi, I find the engineer update especially awesome. Our weapon stats affect all our kits now?! Yes, please! Definitely the update we’ve been waiting for! Or at least one of the major ones.

Well actually OP’s point is moot, because reviving the same person over and over doesn’t count. My buddy revived me twice in a row at Svanir’s dome and only got credit for one revive on the daily. So you would actually have to organize ten friends to all jump to their deaths in LA and let you revive them. I don’t really see this as a hack, but it also seems like a really inconvenient way to get credit. Just go hang out at a big boss event where people are constantly downed.

Agreed, these updates look fantastic. Excited! I can’t wait to enjoy all the new perks to exploring existing zones. Open world exploration is what I spend all my time on anyway and now it’s going to be even more fun.

The small touch-ups are very welcome, too. I’m so happy that annoying animation bug on my ele’s whirlpool won’t happen anymore!

It’s not the hair, I’m afraid. It’s a bug that’s reported quite often.

I did several searches, but couldn’t find a thread about this specific client crash issue. If I overlooked something, please point me to it so I don’t run a duplicate thread. Before bogging down support with a ticket, I just wanted to post here and ask if anyone has a known fix.

About 3/4 of the time when I start GW2, my client freezes before starting to download anything or offering me a login. It just sits there at “0kb” and if I click on anything on my computer screen, a large black square appears around the client. Best case scenario, I get the standard message from Windows about the program not responding, asking if I want to close it. Worst case, my whole computer freezes and I have to logoff, use task manager, or hit the reset button to restart, depending on how bad it crashes that time.

I’ve tried the following:
- scanned hard disk for errors
- run a repair on GW2
- updated GPU drivers
- run general maintenance on PC (emptying temp files, malware & virus scan, etc.)
- told Windows Firewall to allow GW2
- defragmented the game’s dat file

Some info on my system:
Using Windows Firewall and AVG free antivirus :P
Windows 7 Home Premium 64
AMD Radeon HD 6870 GPU
Intel Core i5 2500k CPU (at stock clocks for now)
8GB RAM

Happy to provide any more info that’s needed.

Nice survey, Killer Angel. This looks like it can be really helpful to the community. Thanks for taking the time to set it up and share the results with us.

I added my answers to the mix. In light of the results showing PvE is very popular, maybe people will believe me when I say WvW should be removed from the open world exploration title… :P

But regardless of my personal opinion, great idea, thanks!

Awesome. I could transfer my Harvest Moon addiction to Guild Wars 2!

I definitely agree with what Phantax and others have said. The addition of any in-game activities that aren’t combat get my vote! Maybe, if not an entire profession, a mechanic made available to existing professions would work.

Something like this would be an awesome addition to crafting/gathering. (Why must we be hunter/gatherers. We should have access to agriculture too!)

Thanks for your input Seradane. I’m glad someone bumped this thread. My bugged, invisible flame eye is still sitting in my storage, waiting for a fix. I want to make it part of my perfect armor ensemble, too. It’s such a unique skin! And it reminds me of GW1. Too bad there’s no option to craft something similar, as there is for the engineer’s starter goggles.

Every time this topic comes up, I just have to post in support of removing WvW from map completion.

Anytime PvE and PvP/WvW achievements are combined this way, it makes a lot of players unhappy.

It’s not that we can’t complete the achievement, it’s that we don’t enjoy the activity required to complete it. It’s not fun. Anytime the game forces you to do something you wouldn’t have chosen to do, just to get from point A to point B, it’s grindy.

Also, guesting is coming on the 28th and you will no longer be able to switch servers to finish map completion, without paying for it in gems.This will make it a lot more difficult.

I know it’s often argued that map completion is optional. But I think it’s important to acknowledge it’s an achievement designed to appeal to PvE players, so it’s counter-intuitive to force them to PvP to do it. Not being able to finish something robs players of satisfaction. That’s true of a lot of things right now, as the game stands. Take the personal storyline, designed for people who like to solo. Oh, guess what, you can’t actually finish it by yourself. You have to PUG a dungeon! If this is an attempt by Anet to encourage players to branch out of their chosen playstyle and cooperate, it’s not working for everyone. In many cases, it just makes people frustrated.

The major formats of the game—PvP, PvE, WvW—should not be interwoven that closely, IMO. We should always get to choose which one we want to participate in.

I absolutely support separate achievements for WvW, along the lines of suggestions that have already been made here on the forums many times. Good badge rewards for completing WvW POIs and vistas, instead of counting toward map completion, separate daily/monthly for WvW, etc.

Edit: I just wanted to add, I am okay with the pursuit of a legendary requiring WvW. That’s the point of a legendary, to show mastery of the whole game. Not so with world completion…I feel like the whole point of that achievement caters toward the lore-oriented, smell-the-roses explorer type of player who may or may not enjoy beating up fellow players.

I’ve been wondering about this too! I always used to get karma for helping out a buddy with the personal story. I can’t remember exactly when it stopped. I just realized one day it wasn’t doing it anymore. Surely this wasn’t just a beta thing?

It would be great to have an answer about this. Granted, there are many new sources of karma in the game now (such as daily jugs). But it would be nice to know if it’s working as intended!

moonstarmac.4603:

Ah that it does not, the Wintersday gifts do not drop Foostivoo.

Do we have a source for this? If so, someone needs to edit the wiki page:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Giant_Wintersday_Gift#Items

Edit: I know it sounds like I’m harping on this, it’s just that rumors on the wiki, which a lot of people rely on, really can be frustrating, misleading and disappointing for players.

Hi moonstarmac, you’re right, it does have a chance to drop from the Wintersday Mystery boxes out of the gem store. And the recipe is indeed an easier way.

But our question is whether it also has a rare chance to drop out of the Giant Wintersday Gifts. Not the ones you buy in the gem store, the ones you get as loot for doing activities, Tixx dungeon, etc. Someone on the wiki reported getting a Foostivoo out of a giant gift so we’re curious.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but last time I looked, the person who posted on the wiki that the Giant gift drops Foostivoo didn’t even sign. It’s just an IP address. I’m not sure I’m willing to devote the rest of my holiday to farming or buying Giant gifts on the authority of an anonymous IP.

It would be GREAT to have have a dev post about this. Is this person just spreading misinformation or is there really a chance?

Aesa.4819:

Did you even watch the vid I posted lol? It has your answer..

Basically, you put in 4 endless toy tonics and you get 1 random endless toy tonic, of a toy you didnt put in, back.

TL;DR Not worth doing.

Well, those were tonics. How do we know the toy minis do the same thing?

I know, I know. They probably behave the same way. But we don’t KNOW. The unknown possibilities will continue to torture us… :P

Someone with money to burn, please find out for us if they turn into a mini Foostivoo. :O

A possible happy medium could be buffing the NPCs who are already programmed to accompany you. For example, when you do Ascalonian Catacombs in story mode, Rytlock could get a buff based on the number of people in your party. If you go in by yourself, he would be a powerful sidekick. With a full party, less powerful as he currently is.

I have to say I am more a fan of this idea in instances (i.e. story mode dungeons) than in the explorable areas, where henchman could create balance issues, or explorable dungeons, where the devs and players want a lively dungeon running scene and frequent grouping. But for personal story quests and story mode dungeons, I don’t see why this would be a problem.

Someone actually asked about this during the recent AMA with Chris Whiteside.

Question:
43. I am L26, and it is reaaaally slow going, as the maps and events are deserted, and everything you designed for crowds in mind, I have to solo. Is there any chance of getting heroes/henchman to offset this, at least until L80?

Chris’s answer:
I love the idea of henchmen and this is something we would discuss, however the problem you raise initially would be complemented by this feature rather than fixed. We are going to ensure full use of the world by not polarizing content. This has been a huge topic of conversation today. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and questions.

Source: http://dulfy.net/2012/11/26/gw2-chris-whiteside-ama-on-reddit/

I solo a lot as well, and have been hoping Anet will implement some features that will make the game a little more friendly to solo players. This is especially a problem with story mode dungeons, which absolutely require a PUG in their current state. I would love to see story modes scale to the number of party members or, as you suggest, get to have henchman/heroes (or at least buff the NPCs who are already allies during the story modes).

This is obviously a hugely complex issue in terms of mechanics and game balance…but I was really encouraged that Chris didn’t totally dismiss the idea! Maybe there is some hope?

It is possible to transmute any soulbound skin onto a new item and make it account bound, enabling you to transfer the weapon skin to another character. You lose the stats of course, but you keep the skin.

This works for all skins I’ve tried it on so far, including biography headpieces, so I think it should work just fine for the holiday skins, too, if you ever change your mind about what character you want it on.

Grab a new, non-soulbound item of BLUE or WHITE rarity (this is important). Take the soulbound skin you want and transmute its appearance onto the “clean” blue or white item. In the transmutation window, be sure to choose the appearance of the soulbound item and the stats of the non-soulbound item of blue/white rarity. Voila, you have an account-bound item with the skin you want. It should say “account bound” on the new item. Even if it doesn’t, put it in your bank and transfer it to the new character. The alt will be able to remove it. Then you can use the alt to transfer the skin onto the item with the stats you actually want.

Hope this helps.

Yes, they are such perfect little models of the towns! Really amazing on Tixx’s (i.e. the Anet artists’!) part! I was just glad the castle wasn’t destroyable. Took lots of screenshots next to it when we were done.

Haha yes Wrinn, smashing the towns was so much fun. My guildie and I went in with a group just to do the “Smash the Town” achievement and we had a blast hunting down all those little trees. It was like indulging all your childhood urges to break your lego castles…even though you feel like they are masterpieces…

Bazookajoe.5624:

When I purchased gift boxes off the gem store to get Reindeer tonic, and no mini pets…….

Bazookajoe, as I mentioned in my first post, there are other places to discuss the mini pets and other issues. Why don’t you go to this excellent, constructive thread.

Schei.7301:

I don’t get why so many people are complaining about MINIS… They are no more than completely aesthetic pets, it’s not a big deal if you can’t get every single mini from some event.

For the same reasons a lot of people complained about the weapon skins in the BLTC chests as Halloween. You’re right, they are only aesthetics, but a lot of people really want them and are willing to pay Anet big bucks for them. Just not to gamble for them.

It is in Anet’s best interests and ours that a solution be found that makes players happy and earns Anet cash.

Also as others have pointed out, mini collecting is a beloved activity for many players, including those of us who were mini collectors in GW1. Whether players should or should not be passionate about minis is not really the issue. Players ARE that passionate about it, and it would be better for everyone if the system was designed to satisfy collectors and earn Anet their well-deserved money. I don’t really see how the gambling benefits anyone.

So, what are your favorite things about this event so far? Tell us what aspects of Wintersday halted your WASD keys in their tracks so you could stop and say “Wow!”

I know some of you have concerns or disappointments about the event, but if so, please go make or contribute to another thread where you can share constructive suggestions. Anet deserves feedback on all the stuff we LOVE about this event, too, and that’s what this thread is for.

So, for me:
The patch downloads. Loading screen. The new Wintersday theme is soaring in my headphones. Then…Lion’s Arch! Covered in snow! My first glimpse of the city with the decorations! Breathtaking!

Then today, my first run through the Tixx dungeon. I’m thinking, oh. My. This whole thing is an airship! And is that design on that shiny magitech glass brush strokes straight from the concept art?! So gorgeous!

I found the dungeon super fun and ran it with two awesome, friendly groups. Playing in Tixx’s workshop definitely did it—it got me in the Wintersday spirit.

Thanks for starting a civil and constructive thread about this! I am loving the event so far and am definitely in the spirit of Wintersday, but I agree we need to voice some suggestions about the mini issue.

I loved the Halloween system and would gladly buy two mini packs so I can get all three festive minis, then craft a quaggan. On a side note, I also don’t mind that we have to pay gems for some of the “dungeon minis.” As long as I get what I’m paying for without RNG, I have no problem paying Anet real money for pixels.

Really, the Halloween system was awesome, I don’t know why they changed it. Seeing the mini pack along with all those lovely winter weapon skins in the gem store would make my Wintersday!

I completely agree. I 100% prefer being able to buy the minis outright like at Halloween, in which case, I’m okay with them being account bound. The pack of spooky minis was the first thing I snagged from the gemstore when the event went live. But if the minis are random in the boxes, please at least make them tradeable like the Lost Shores pets so we can buy them from the TP later! As it stands, mini collectors can kiss their chance at a complete set goodbye, and all the players who would pay good money for a mini quaggan will probably not feel motivated to spend money on chests.

So close and yet so far. I love that we can buy the weapon skins, and I really applaud Anet for listening to players’ concerns in so many respects to make Wintersday really great. But this one thing needs to change.

Whether something is tasteful vs. tacky, or sexy vs. objectifying is a highly subjective issue that depends on the opinions, beliefs, culture and comfort zone of the player. Because of that, there should be many options in the game. Skimpy armor is fine, as long as there are as many modest/pragmatic options for those who don’t like the revealing designs.

What should never happen is a gender double standard in skimpy armor designs. There should be as many skimpy armor designs for male characters as for female. Period. Anything else is sexist.

It’s also not any fun, because anybody who is attracted to men wants to enjoy those well-rendered male bodies. And maybe male players would like to run around in something that’s not a neck-to-ankle dress? Maybe they want to feel strapping and hot, just like female gamers who deck their buxom elementalists in Masquerade because it makes them feel sexy?

Personally, I hate the Masquerade set because of the way it embodies the armor double standard (take a look at the male version), but again, that is my personal conviction/comfort zone. Make male tribal armor available in PvE, and it is going on my human male necromancer. Just to support equal opportunity armor. And also because it’s hot.

Thanks for the replies, everyone! Jeffrey, I really appreciate your input!

Yes, I am referring to conversations rather than cutscenes. I am currently unable to see ANY conversations, even the ones that influence major storyline decisions. For example, my guildie and just did A Light in the Darkness, and she was the instance owner. When she was choosing her greatest fear, which determines a major chapter of the storyline, I could not see the conversation at all. It was like this for the entire mission, but that one bothered me especially, since we were planning to agree on an option and play the same chapter together. She had to read the options to me over voice chat.

So this was not supposed to work this way? Do you think I should file a bug report?

I would love to see something like this. As someone who came to GW2 from GW1 and still plays the first game, I would love to see GW2 players offered an easier way to buy the original games, so they can experience the lore for themselves and work on Hall of Monuments. I would just love to see ANet continue to show GW1 some love in general.

Chewienl, you may already know this but GW1 has an in-game store as well that is separate from GW2. If you make an account (I think you can do this be getting a trial key from guildwars.com) you can buy all campaigns, the expansion, and extras like bank tabs online with your credit card without needing to buy a physical copy of the game.

Still, I would love to see GW1 available for purchase via gems to draw GW2 players’ attention to it and make it more convenient for everyone.

Has anyone else noticed this change? Originally, when you helped a fellow player with their personal story, you could see all of the dialogue popups on your own screen and follow along as the instance owner clicked their choices. You could tell what was going on even though you couldn’t interact with any of the characters.

Lately while a guildie and I were going through the story together, we noticed that whoever was not the instance owner couldn’t see any of these screens anymore. It’s kind of difficult, because you miss out on dialogue and lore, unless your guildie is patient enough to read the text to you over voice chat. :P

Did they change this? Or do you think it might be a bug on the particular missions we were doing? (Vigil storyline in the lvl 50-60 range.)