Guild Wars 2

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The season 1 schedule cannot change while the season is in progress. Feedback and data will be taken into account when scheduling the next season, but the scheduled matchups and league structure are locked in until the end of this season.

This is not a bug, this is part of some recent changes to the infraction system. The Community Team has updated some features on the Guild Wars 2 Forums which give us a tiered system of forum privileges & access based on number of infraction points. We decided to offer this tiered approach so players lose various privileges versus receiving harsher suspensions and permanent bans. We would like our players to consider their posting habits and encourage following the Code of Conduct. We are confident that this approach is more conducive to guiding a more positive experience for our community.

BUGFIXES

• Fixed a bug preventing some players from receiving the Mask of the Night Skin after succeeding the Mad King Says event.
• Timberline Falls: fixed a bug that would prevent the krait witch event from starting.
• Fixed a bug that would cause a crash when exiting the client after viewing a loading screen.
• Fixed a bug that caused more glory to be awarded than intended after long matches.

BUGFIXES

• Fixed a bug preventing the PvP Daily Top Stats achievement from being advanced.
• Fixed a rare crash involving the “Toxic Pollen” debuff.
• Fixed a bug which prevented players below level 26 to enter the “Nightmare Unveiled” story instance.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the new Kessex Hills escort event “Protect Jun Brightclaw as he resupplies Ireko Tradecamp” to restart incorrectly.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the new Kessex Hills escort event “Escort Lionguard Daan to supply Overlake Haven against the Toxic Alliance“ to restart incorrectly.
• Fixed a crash related to completion of the Frozen Maw event.

ITEMS

• Some sylvari cultural armors have been upgraded to glow as was originally intended and has been highly requested. To give the most flexibility in the armor design, the dye masks have also been altered so that players will have more control over the results of the armor glow. This currently affects Medium Tier 2 (legs will be re-addressed for glow and dye alignment) and Tier 3, Light Tier 1 (female only), and Light Tier 3. The other weights and tiers will be assessed for a similar pass to give glow or upgrade glow results when possible.

October 29 Content Release Notes
LIVING WORLD
Tower of Nightmares
What happens when the evil agendas of the krait and the Nightmare Court align? The answer can be found around Viathan Lake in Kessex Hills, where a dreadful tower has risen to spew poison into the sky. It’s causing hallucinations and illness in all who breathe in the spores. The malevolent forces behind it have Tyria’s subjugation in mind.
Story

• Track down Marjory Delaqua and Lady Kasmeer Meade in Kessex Hills, and help them investigate the sinister nature of the massive “Tower of Nightmares” in the waters of Viathan Lake.
• When entering Kessex Hills, players with an actual level higher than 25 will automatically be redirected to a story instance.
• Players level 25 and under may still opt to play the story instance by speaking to Marjory in Kessex Hills.
  • This solo story instance will introduce players to the new threat of the “Toxic Alliance” between the krait and a faction of the Nightmare Court. Players will encounter the Toxic Alliance’s unique and deadly skills firsthand as they battle their way to Marjory and Kasmeer.
  • Players may leave this instance without penalty, and they may retry it at any time by speaking to Marjory in Kessex Hills until the instance has been completed.
  • Once the instance has been completed, it can be replayed by another character.

Open World

• Kessex Hills
  • Kessex Hills has become even more of a war zone than usual! The Tower of Nightmares has completely changed the area around Viathan Lake, spewing toxic pollen and gases into the air, turning the sky a dark and sickly hue. The Toxic Alliance, flooding from the monolithic tower, is working to cement a foothold in the region. Seraph forces are trying to stem the tide, but the tower itself appears impenetrable and is surrounded by a wall of suffocating toxic gas that prevents entry.
  • The Toxic Alliance appears to be here to stay. They’ve been taking territory from both allies and enemies alike, from Mudbay Digs to Greyhoof Meadows and all points in between. As players battle through a variety of new dynamic events, they will wage war on this new threat on multiple fronts around the base of the Tower of Nightmares.
  • The Tower of Nightmares is also creating smaller offshoots of itself at several locations around the map. Players must aid the Vigil, the Order of Whispers, and the Durmand Priory as they attempt to destroy these toxic offshoots with siege weapons.
  • Marjory Delaqua, an expert in poisons, is working hard to formulate an antitoxin from a camp at Thunder Ridge so that the heroes of Tyria can enter the tower and take the fight to the Toxic Alliance on their own turf. Players can help Marjory’s research efforts by bringing her Pristine Toxic Spore Samples, which can be found by completing related events and destroying Toxic Alliance enemies.
• The Toxic Offshoots aren’t just limited to Kessex Hills. The wind has carried these vile blooms into the neighboring zones of Caledon Forest, Metrica Province, Brisban Wildlands, Queensdale, and Gendarran Fields. They have even been spotted in the Eternal Battlegrounds!
• The Durmand Priory has been investigating the involvement of the krait, a normally xenophobic and hostile force. They are convinced that the krait have been gifted with something very important to their culture: shards of one of their great obelisks. Krait obelisks factor heavily into the krait religion, so Priory Arcanist Dolja will task players to find and transcribe the energy signatures of 24 of these obelisk shards across Tyria.
• The Toxic Alliance is the toughest force yet, and their arrival brings with it the debut of the elite species type. With its difficulty level situated between a veteran and a champion, elite enemies are designed to challenge small groups of players outside of group instances.
• Blood and Madness content and achievements will still be available to play until November 11, including decorations, activities, Haunted Door events, and story instances. Also, a single Halloween-themed daily achievement will be available.
  • Mad King Thorn will visit Lion’s Arch between 9 a.m. PDT on October 30 through 9 a.m. PDT on November 1. During that period, the Mad King will tell jokes as he wanders the Mystic Plaza and play Mad King Says in the Grand Piazza. This is the only time players can gain the A Royal Tradition achievement, which awards successful players with the Mask of the Night Skin.

Rewards

• Finishing the Tower of Nightmares meta-achievement will reward the player with a personal Krait Obelisk Shard, a place of power for their home instance. It can be used to obtain a skill point and to charge Quartz Crystals once per day.
• Finishing the Toxic Krait Historian achievement will reward players with a Scroll of Knowledge, which allows them to obtain five skill points.
• Marjory Delaqua will accept extra Pristine Toxic Spore Samples as trade for various new crafting recipes and a new heal skill at the Thunder Ridge Camp in Kessex Hills.
  • Antitoxin Spray: This new heal skill is usable by all professions in PvE and WvW. Players can use the antitoxin to heal themselves and nearby allies while also removing toxic pollen, poison, torment, and confusion.

Achievements

• Tower of Nightmares, the meta-achievement, will task players with bringing down Toxic Offshoots, gathering spore samples to complete Marjory’s research, seeking out krait obelisk shards, and destroying Toxic Alliance forces and their champions.
  • During this release, completing Tower of Nightmares daily achievements will contribute to the meta-achievement. These are earned by participating in specific Tower of Nightmares content each day.

BALANCE, BUG-FIXING, POLISH
General

• PvP Glory and Rank rewards have been revised. Personal score no longer grants rank. Instead, there are now flat bonuses for playing and winning games. Games lasting less than 7 minutes will have proportionally downscaled rewards.
• The Special Event UI has been updated to help direct players through Living World releases.

Items

• The crafting recipe for Bolts of Silk now requires 3 Silk Scraps.
• The crafting recipe for Cured Thick Leather Squares now requires 3 Thick Leather Sections.
• The icon for the Scroll of Knowledge has been updated.
• The icon for the Experience Scroll has been updated.

Profession Skills
Elementalist

• Conjure Fiery Greatsword—Firestorm: Fixed the radius skill fact and included a duration skill fact.
• Mist Form: Added a skill fact for the movement-speed increase.
• Undercurrent: Added a radius skill fact.
• Tempest Defense: This trait now lists the appropriate damage increase to stunned and knocked-down opponents.

Engineer

• Scatter Mines: Added radius and damage skill facts.
• Reinforced Shield: This trait now indicates an increase to toughness, rather than adrenaline.
• Low-Health Response System: Added a trait fact for the health threshold.
• Napalm Specialist: This trait now displays its duration increase when used with skills that apply burning.
• Elite Supplies: This trait now appropriately reduces the recharge time of mortar abilities.
• Infused Precision: This trait now lists the chance to activate on critical hits.

Guardian

• Smite: Added a skill fact for the number of impacts, and removed the number of attacks from the damage skill fact.
• Protector’s Strike: Replaced the range skill fact with a radius.

Mesmer

• Veil: Fixed the duration skill fact to properly indicate its duration, with and without Temporal Enchanter traited.

Ranger

• Malicious Training: Updated multiple pet abilities to reflect when this trait is equipped.
• Juvenile Brown Bear:
  • Shake It Off: Fixed an issue that caused the condition-removal effects to behave erratically.
• Sword—Slash: Removed the skill fact that displayed bleeding condition removal.

Thief

• Shadow Refuge: Added a pulses skill fact.

Warrior

• Hundred Blades: Fixed the skill fact to properly update when traited with Slashing Power.

World vs. World

• Fixed an issue with a couple of dolyak caravans that caused them to path to the wrong objective in some cases.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

• Three new sets of armor skins are now available in the Gem Store: Phalanx armor skins for heavy-armor wearers, Viper’s armor skins for medium-armor wearers, and Trickster’s armor skins for light-armor wearers. Each armor-skin pack is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 800 gems.
• A new permanent finisher is available for WvW and PvP combat. The fearsome new Toxic Offshoot Finisher is available in the Upgrades category of the Gem Store for 600 gems.
• Dreamthistle weapon skins are now available from Black Lion Weapons Specialists and cost only 1 Black Lion Claim Ticket from now until November 25. Players can get Black Lion Claim Tickets and Black Lion Claim Ticket Scraps from Black Lion Chests, which can be unlocked with Black Lion Chest Keys available in the Consumable category of the Gem Store.

Reports are for moderation purposes only. Please do not use the report function to flag a post for developer attention.

Developers do not have access to forum reports. Only moderators and members of the community team see reports.

Blood and Madness will continue until the November 12 update.

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LIVING WORLD
Blood and Madness

Rewards

• Mad King’s Clock Tower Jumping Puzzle Magnificent Chest.
  • Players will receive the Gloves of Madness upon the first ascent completion. This is a one-time, account-bound reward.
  • After that the chest will award two or three Trick-or-Treat bags and a daily reward of 20 Empyreal.

Achievements

• Lunatic Inquisition Regular achievement now has a cap of 50 achievement points, to be consistent with other activities.

LIVING WORLD
Blood and Madness

• Fixed a bug in the Bonebreaker, Candy-Corn Crushers and Death to the Undying achievements that prevented them from being rewarded to some participants.
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to interrupt stomps and still progress the A Stomping Good Time achievement.
• Fixed a bug that prevented players from receiving the Tassi’s Relay Golem reward if they disconnected after being awarded the Containment achievement*
• Added 20 Empyreal Fragments as a daily account reward for completing the Mad King Tower jumping Puzzle as a subsequent reward after first time completion.
• Updated Lunatic Inquisition rewards to be in line with other activities.

BALANCE, BUG FIXING, POLISH
General

• Fixed an issue where sound effect levels in large-scale events could lower drastically and not return to their normal volume.
• Fixed a bug that caused a small number of players to see “Error 19” when selecting a character to play.

Engineer

• Fixed a bug that caused the Rocket Turret to deal less damage when traited with Rifled Turret Barrels.

Warrior

• Fixed a bug in Defy Pain that prevented this trait from properly functioning when the Sure Footed trait is also equipped.

WvW

• Fixed an issue that prevented some players from progressing WvW Season 1 achievements.

PvP

• Added Trick or Treat bags and Candy Corn for participation in Solo Arena and Team Arena.

Hey everybody, just a reminder to please keep your suggestions as concise as possible to aid us in identifying the most-desired topics for discussion. We understand the desire to elaborate on your choices, but there will be time for that in follow-up discussions.
Thanks!

Hey everybody, just a reminder to please keep your suggestions as concise as possible to aid us in identifying the most-desired topics for discussion. We understand the desire to elaborate on your choices, but there will be time for that in follow-up discussions.

Thanks!

Hey everybody,

I’ve noticed some posts in here suggesting WvW and PvP topics. Chris has posted separate threads for those issues here (PvP) and here (WvW). Going forward, please limit topic suggestions in this thread to PvE topics and post your WvW and PvP suggested topics to the appropriate threads.

Also, please keep your suggestions as concise as possible to aid us in identifying the most-desired topics for discussion. We understand the desire to elaborate on your choices, but there will be time for that in follow-up discussions.

Thanks

Posts are timestamped according to the server time, but the “x minutes ago” is derived using your local clock. If your local clock is enough behind the forum server’s clock, it will assume the post you are reading was made in the future and display as such.

If it bothers you that much, you can either update your local PC clock or click on the timestamp to have it display in a traditional date/time format.

Karizee.8076:

Danica, could you folks look into the +1 function to see if it’s working properly? I’m seeing many posts here with the +1 grayed out as if I upvoted it when I clearly did not.

This is a javascript issue and only affects the display and not the actual vote. This is on our list to fix, but we do have some higher priority forum issues ahead of it.

LIVING WORLD
Blood and Madness

• Fixed a bug which prevented finishing the clock tower from counting toward Daily Puzzle Jumper or Puzzle Jumper achievements.

BALANCE, BUG FIXING, POLISH
General

• Fixed a bug with Bouquet of Roses “Toss Bouquet” skill occasionally disabling enemies and not granting the owner a ‘return bouquet’ skill.
• Default dye colors have been updated on the Witches Outfit, Mad King’s Outfit and the Phantom Hood to make them more Spooktacular!
• Fixed a frequent client crash when loading.

Ranger

• Vigorous Training: This trait now correctly applies 5 seconds of Vigor to 5 targets in a 600 radius around the summoned pet.
• Hide In Plain Sight: This trait will now only activate when the ranger is hit with crowd-control.

Warrior

• Leg Specialist: Fixed a bug so that this trait will properly use a 5 second recharge.

BALANCE, BUG-FIXING, POLISH
Items

• Sigil of Paralyzation: Fixed a bug that caused stuns to round up to the next second.

To appeal moderation actions, please email forums@arena.net.

Zaxian.6035:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

When search ceases to function, please update this thread again. We will explore options to potentially restore search again if it ceases to function, but I can’t make any promises at this time.

If I search this thread for the word ‘working’ I invariable get no results (when it clearly appears in at least one comment on the first page). Interestingly, if I search for ‘not’ I sometimes get 87 hits, occasionally 88, and then (after retyping it and searching a couple of times) 0 results.
If I search the entire forum for ‘working’ I get 4 hits, none of which are this thread.

It’s better than before (this time I actually get to a search page) but it’s clearly not completely functional.

We seem to have two separate issues affecting search. The first is with indexing, which immediately after the deploy appeared to be working as normal, but shortly thereafter narrowed down to only searching within about the last hour. The second is an issue where search stops functioning entirely after an undetermined amount of time. Currently, we’re only experiencing the first, but not the second.

I see Danicia and I are on the same page here

Star Ace.5207:

Actually there’s plenty of abusive trolling in some corners of this forum that aren’t being properly addressed. Reporting is great, but what when most posts could be reported? Players ganging up against others, mocking them, etc. Negative feed back is fine, but insulting fellow forum members is not, whatever “side” of the argument you may be on.

If you find that multiple posts in a thread require moderator attention, just make a note of it in your report. The mods will take a look and decide where to issue infractions and if a thread should be locked or not. Reporting is the best way to bring moderator attention to a thread. Plus it’s not visible to other players, so you won’t be singled out for being “that guy”.

Hey all. Please understand that the moderators cannot read every post made on the forums. If you encounter posts that you believe to be in violation of the forum code of conduct (trolling, hatespeech, spam, personal attacks, etc), please use the report flag in the bottom right of the post to bring it to the moderation team’s attention. This is the best way to be certain a moderator will review a post.

That said, what some have expressed in this thread is correct, constructive criticism is not against the rules. Players are allowed to express their negative feedback as much as anybody is allowed to express positive feedback, so long as it’s done in a polite and respectful manner.

Devon is busy handling his duties as the WvW team lead and will post as his schedule allows.

Looks like the indexing borked up again. Right after the deploy I was testing with common terms and was getting 50+ pages of results. I’ll be sure to pass on how quickly this degraded, hopefully the information will help with fixing the issue.

Hey everybody, an update on the search situation. The issue with search is a bit more complex than anybody thought it would be. Today we deployed an update to the forums that contained a few unrelated bugfixes. Since this deploy, it appears that the search function is working again.

However, we have not yet addressed the root cause of why search breaks in the first place and cannot predict how long it will remain functional. When search ceases to function, please update this thread again. We will explore options to potentially restore search again if it ceases to function, but I can’t make any promises at this time.

Locking this as it is a duplicate of this thread

Balance, Bug-Fixing, Polish
General

• Transmuted items now require a salvage confirmation if either source item would have required it.
• Buff tooltips no longer flicker when updating.
• Enabling player nameplates now causes mesmer clone nameplates to display.

Structured Player vs. Player

• Leaving activities via the PvP dialog now correctly redirects the player to their previous public location.
• Spectators of players can always use the escape menu.
• Added a tournament-commands option to custom arenas. This option will enable the use of game-modifying commands while disabling progression.
• Names of teammates on your roster will no longer disappear.
• Rangers can no longer change pets in a match when Lock Skills is enabled.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

We’re currently looking into a bug related to WvW. Until this issue is resolved, we have suspended WvW matches to investigate and resolve it. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Balance, Bug-Fixing, Polish

• Fixed an issue that caused audio loss when players interacted with scout NPCs.
• Fixed an issue that prevented some visual effects from being displayed in spectator mode.
• Fixed a server crash.

If you have a bug you’d like to report, or are just unsure on if you’re experiencing a bug, post it over in the Game Bugs subforum.

The Clockwork Chaos forum has been archived and is no longer open to new posts. All living story subforums are archived after the chapter has ended.

• Fixed various server crashes.

Looking For Group Tool Beta

• We’ve begun expanding player access to the Looking For Group tool. We are continuing to monitor and address any issues found during this process.

Player vs. Player

• Fixed a bug that prevented kill announcements from being displayed to all players.

All right everybody, the day is about over and I’m about to head home. Thanks for keeping it civil in here and my apologies to the questions I did not have time to get to. Have a good evening, night, morning, afternoon or whatever time of day it is in your corner of the globe.

colesy.8490:

So ANet, you actually read the dungeon forum? Is that why there’s been I believe one message from you (Colin saying TA was high priority for revamp) in months?

You guys in the WvW section think you have it bad, the only interaction we get in the dungeon forum is ModBot smacking us with infractions or sending threads in to “trash can”. We were even able to fill the entire first page with threads about the same topic before anything even happened.

As I mentioned earlier, we do regularly read every subforum in order to pass feedback on to the development team. We can recommend to the team that they try to post more often in there, but I can make no promises. While it is part of the community team’s job to keep up with the forums, developers have other responsibilities and don’t always have time to post. I will see what can be done when I bring it up with the team.

Valik Shin.9027:

I can understand the need to merge threads and delete some but sometimes it gets out of hand. There are many times the op post is very simular to another but it becomes a completely different conversation after 10 posters. When these threads get merged they kill the conversation. Some of the best discussion I have seen is 2 or 3 people just hashing back and forth ideas on a very specific part of something. When the threads are merged and there is 3 or 4 conversations going on all but one tends to die out and the comuity and the devs have lost out on what could be a very interesting and helpful conversation. That’s not to say it always happends and I know people can be very busy. But sometimes there needs to be more thought on what threads need merged

I get your concern, but please understand that if we left every slightly divergent topic with 2-3 people having a discussion, it can dominate the page and detract from people trying to participate in other topics. For example, yesterday bloodlust topics dominated more than half of the topics on the front page.

That said, we will try to be more careful in what does and does not get merged, but we do have to decide based on what’s best for the forums as a whole and not just the players participating in the affected threads.

Burnfall.9573:

(I understand what you’re saying mark and I Promise i will behave.)

My only question to you is that, is it in Arena.net vision in having un-fair class mechanics dictate gw2 game play?

Like for example’ how un-counterable perma-steath and perma-stun are controlling gw2 world.

I’m looking forward to your answer since you’re encuraging us to do so.

Also, it is tbe question that the majoirty of foum players had continiouslly been asking since day 1,

Thanks in advance.

This thread is in regards to forums, moderation and the like. I don’t have answers to questions on bugs, profession mechanics or future design plans. If you would like answers to those questions, I recommend you spin up a new thread in the appropriate subforum.

Luna.9640:

There is 1 rule of the “Forum Code of Conduct” that literally gets abused by every mod and used to censorship – “not leading to constructive discussion”

Can you please work it to be more specific/clear and when a certain topic gets deleted the mods should 100% clearly state what word/sentence w/e part of the thread/post is against the rules exactly.

I’ve my topic deleted just because someone else that posted there was breaking the rules.However i got my topic deleted without this “little” detail pointed so i had to go through mailing forums@arena.net waste time and get upset just because your mods are too lazy to point out the real reason for their action or hide it under a totally not specific – “not leading to constructive discussion”

Like you devs/mods are human we forum community are human as well but the only difference is we are costumers on top of that so this should never be forgotten.

We are currently working with our mod team to improve moderation responses and communication. Please email any issues you have with moderation to forums@arena.net. I know some of you feel that’s a tired response, but in addition to fielding appeals, emailing us there helps us to identify where the mods could use improvement and communicate this information back to the team. Since we’re not omniscient, we depend on you guys to let us know when mistakes are being made.

The reason we typically don’t allow discussion of moderation actions on the forums is because threads of that type can quickly get out of hand with 100 people jumping in to complain about their personal experiences with colorful adjectives and insults.

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

Mark, since you seem to be monitoring this thread…

Many people have requested separate Suggestion sub-forums under main Forum areas (PvP, WvW, PvE, Crafting, etc) – Can we please get that implemented as I see it only helping everybody:

• Devs can focus on Suggestions for the areas they work on
• People can post Suggestions where they can be seen by others interested in the same area/topic
• Mods would have less threads to move around as people would be most often posting in the correct place to begin with

I can bring this up with the rest of the team and affected development teams to see if/how helpful this would be to them. No promises though.

Joey.2769:

Mark,
Thank you very much for taking the time to open up and communicate with us. I do have to ask is there a vague timeline you and the team are aiming for to collect the feedback necessary from the latest patch. The blowout matchups are now way worse for those on less WvW populated servers. The friends I have on the game and guild I am in are discussing leaving for good. I enjoy this game very much but I too share their concerns about the buffs.

We don’t have a strict timeline on these matters. As I mentioned earlier, we regularly send feedback on all aspects of the game over to the teams. We don’t have a timeline where we only focus on the latest update. It’s true the latest update is a heavy focus in the days following, but we also keep an eye out for any feedback that we feel should be raised, regardless of how long ago that content was updated or what aspect of the game it covers. I can assure you, we will be keeping an eye out for WvW feedback regarding matchups, the upcoming season and any other concerns that may crop up.

Safire.9143:

Tons of suggestions for Housing/Dueling/New pvp modes/GvG/fishing, did u pass these suggestions to devs ? i think they really didnt care about what ppls want, better make new pvp modes, because last update completly ruined wvw… WHY u make that ? WHY u didnt make something ppls want ?

Suggestions are passed on the same as other feedback. Something to keep in mind is that many of the types of suggestions in your examples are things that take significant development time. For example, at the same time there were many requests for an LFG tool here on the forums, the team was working hard behind the scenes to make it happen. We are working to improve transparency, but at the same time we try to avoid making promises until we are sure we can keep them.

etiolate.9185:

Mark,

You guys always list forums@arena.net as a way to contact the community team about issues, but none of the emails I have sent there have been replied to. In my experience, this is simply a black hole to swallow valid complaints.

Also, can the forum team lay off of the constant thread moving and merging? Every day I post, I log in the next day to find my post was moved to another subforum or merged into another thread. When I go back to the conversation I was having, it’s either dead from the move or lost in the merge. More often than not, each thread that gets merged is a separate line of discussion than the thread its merged into. So while three threads may have the same general vague topic, they are three distinctly different conversations. When these threads are merged, it destroys the conversation. This leads your playerbase to believe you are trying to end critical conversations by sweeping them under the rug.

I know there was a GvG thread that I posted in that got moved to three different forums over a period of time. Eventually, it ended up in the same place it began. If your team members are not sure if a thread belongs where its put, then I advise you to trust your playerbase. If someone posts a link that raises a topic and then has the thread for the community to discuss that topic, it doesn’t belong in the links thread. It’s not a thread to share links. It’s a thread about a topic that is illustrated at said link.

I can assure you that we do read all emails sent to forums@arena.net, and with the exception of simple apologies or insults, we do respond. As a matter of curiosity, I did check our ticket database against your email address, etiolate, and came up with no results. I can only surmise that your emails were lost somehow in transit to our inbox.

As for thread moving and merging, these are unfortunately a necessary evil of forum management. Threads are regularly moved to the proper subforum not because we’re trying to hide them, but because we are trying to keep the forums topical. If we ceased moving threads, over 50% of all discussion on the forums would end up in Guild Wars 2 Discussion and the smaller subforums, like BLTC and the race/profession forums would dry up entirely.

On the topic of merging, I have noticed the impression that we merge to hide discussion, and this could not be further from the truth. As I mentioned previously, we pass on feedback to the development team regularly. What makes that more difficult is having anywhere from 5 to 50 threads on a single topic. I understand that each thread may have its own sub-conversations taking place, but when it comes to being able to parse and provide feedback to the developers, one thread per topic is best. I disagree with your stance that merging destroys conversations. I encourage everybody to use quote tags to keep a conversation going post-merge by quoting the posts you are replying to.

In response to your final point, our moderation team is still getting used to the changes in how we handle GvG threads, and mistakes can be made occasionally. We are working hard to get everybody up to speed on the new policies regarding those threads. As for threads being moved to Linksville, I touched on this briefly not too long ago but I will repeat myself here. If the primary focus point of a new thread is a link, it will be moved to Linksville. If you, or anybody else is providing a link with the intention of holding a discussion related to its content, please provide your discussion points in the thread with the link. If a new thread contains only a link and the word “discuss” it will always be moved to Linksville.

We hold our staff members to the same standards as the players when posting on the forums and encourage them to exceed those standards. That said, developers are real people too and we prefer that our staff members post with their own personalities and not just rehash marketing speak. If a developer is not abiding by our standards we work with them to improve how they communicate on the forums.

Greetings Dream,

Allow me to take a moment to answer some of your questions and hopefully alleviate your concerns. In regards to your first question concerning posts and threads being removed, allow me to quote another member of our Community team who addressed this concern earlier this month:

CC Danicia.1394:

Our Forum Code of Conduct is very clear regarding what is acceptable discussion. It’s true; we do not allow “I quit” threads or threads created simply to complain. We DO allow negative threads, as long as it remains constructive and respectful. Not just respectful towards each other, but also to our staff, which includes the Moderation Team, Dev Team, and more.

…

Our goal is to allow our community to express their thoughts and desires for the game, but not at the expense of our welcoming and respectful spaces.

That said, threads and posts are removed because they violate the forum code of conduct. We do not remove posts simply because we don’t like what people are saying. In short, it’s not what people say, but how they say it. As long as people engage in critical discussions in a way that treats developers and community members respectfully, there should not be an issue.

However, we are human and we do make mistakes. Which is why we encourage you to email forums@arena.net if you believe a moderation action was made in error.

We are always seeking to improve with moderation on the forums and having the opportunity to correct mistakes and educate those involved is the first step towards doing so.

In response to your question about how we collect and pass on feedback, the simple answer is “yes”. We have a rotating schedule of all the subforums, ensuring that each subforum is reviewed regularly and feedback from each subforum is passed on to the developers. Additionally, after an update, feedback is gathered from forums most affected by the update. In the case of the most recent update, WvW made up a significant amount of the feedback, and yes the negative feedback was included as part of that report. To be frank, I personally spent my entire afternoon yesterday reading and gathering feedback from the WvW subforum for yesterday’s report.

I cannot make promises regarding what actions the development teams will take based on the feedback we provide, but I can promise that they do hear your feedback, either by reading it directly here on the forums or through the reports we send them each day.

As part of the Community team, communication with players is always at the forefront of our minds and we’re always looking at methods to make improvements in that field. That said, we will leave this thread open today, so you can ask further questions, and share your concerns. Please note that if the discussion does not stay civil or constructive, we’ll close the thread.

Our hope is that by leaving this open for discussion, we can show that we are listening and working to improve our processes.

As this thread dates back to before the update, please use the current, active thread to discuss this topic. Thanks.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Bloodlust-merged

Since this issue has been fixed, this thread does not need to stay open.

Since the request posed in the OP has already been answered, and this thread has veered away from its original topic, we’re going to lock this thread.