Guild Wars 2

glacialphoenix.3160:

I agree that making one-time events repeat for 24h would not expunge all the complaining because nothing ever does.

But when you’re talking about missing events: it’s one thing to opt to miss an event that you could make, and another to be completely unable to attend a once-off event because of your timezone. 12 noon PST is pretty much a horrible timing if you’re in Asia or Oceania.

Nobody should expect to be able to attend all events, because other things crop up and take precedence – but nobody should be expecting to automatically miss out on all the events due to timezone, either. (Which is what will happen if one-time events keep getting released at 12 noon PST Sunday.)

^^ This x <insert number>

I don’t see too many folks in the timezones affected by the 12 noon PST time frame demanding that they get things scheduled to only suit them.

I see them asking that the concept of “one time” events be worked to include them.

Y’know – really, all they’re asking for is an equal opportunity to attend than is given to other time zones? And yet folks here on the forums are shooting them down in flames, calling them whiny and complaining etc?

I honestly would ask – if the tables were turned, how would things be?

critickitten.1498:

<snip> I don’t know why you’d insist on always being able to show up for one-time events in a fantasy world either. <snip>

Sadly, here’s where you whole argument falls down.

Folks who couldn’t participate in the (2? 3?) one time events for Lost Shores aren’t asking to always be able to show up.

The fact is, however, that the one time events during both Halloween and Lost Shores were all held at the same time of day (albeit on different days). This has set an expectation that future one time events will be held at this time too – as it appears to be the period of peak concurrency.

On that basis, you are effectively saying to a portion of the client base who happen to live in a time zone that makes that time of day unattendable, that they will never get to attend one of these one-time events.

The fact is that some paying customers, simply because of where they live, have not been able to attend this final Lost Shores event, and have missed out on potentially useful rewards, not to mention the content itself – in other words, it’s a double insult to those people.

So, I’m to understand, bugs aside, that there were some items (presumably decent) that dropped from the chest, and there was a chance at a precursor?

Am I further to presume that some players, because of the time zone in which they live, now get a “tough luck” message, and that we, having paid the same amount for the game content, effectively get looked over because this was a “one time” event?

Not. Happy. Jan.

Stuhac.6254:

We should start a “What were you doing instead of Lost Shore Events” topic… in my case I decided to go to the beach and have a sunny afternoon.

Gave up on the whole shebang several hours ago in game, went to Frostgorge Sound to do some farming instead, then took the evening out to watch a movie or two.

Seconding the call on this for Dragonbrand, have given around 30 mins in case the spawn timer was a bit off, but no show.

Noll that scared of us?

MatthewMedina.5419:

The reason we chose the times that we did, when concurrency is at its peak, is precisely because it offers us the highest chance for the largest number of people to attend. By definition though, because concurrency rises and falls, that means it’s impossible for us to choose a time that offers us a chance for everyone to attend.

Offering events like this at multiple times for different time zones is certainly worth considering, but given our team’s goals and the timeline we had to operate in (we fielded our team immediately after shipping the Live game), it just wasn’t feasible for us to consider such an option for this particular event.

Having said that, this decision is something that we realized would not make everyone happy. Keep in mind that there is a tremendous lineup of content to choose from during the weekend and after, with both the island and the Fractals dungeon remaining active, and we will continue to listen to both criticisms and compliments about these special events in order to continually improve your playing experience.

Matthew, thank you for your post here – this does provide a level of explanation as to why – so far – all “events” in game have been one time.

I have previously posted my thoughts on this topic here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/events/The-lost-shores-one-time-events/first#post649153

Going forward from here, I would hope that the team behind these events surrounding the Lost Shores can appreciate that, by design, they have made it impossible for a portion of their client base to attend. For clarity (as I’m sure this post will be derided by several forumgoers), I don’t mean impossible as in “I choose to do something else at the time”, I mean impossible as in “I simply cannot attend as this falls during working hours on a work day”.

I personally would like to see two things as an outcome to these, and the Halloween event(s):

(1) Future events should not be a “one time” thing – this simply does not work when the audience and client base is global. Either these events need to be “instanced” per player, or be designed to last 24 hours or more, giving players at least a window of opportunity to partake in those events. Every single player of GW2 paid a share toward the development of these event contents by purchasing the game, and potentially gem purchases since the launch of the game. Please don’t alienate your clients by designing content that they will never have an opportunity to see based on a one time event and concurrency timing.

(2) If there will be items available to players in these events introducing the Lost Shores, please allow those who are unable to enjoy the content at least have a method of obtaining the items they otherwise would have been able to enjoy – not doing so would be an added insult to those players who have, by the misfortune of where they live, already missed out on the opportunity to partake in this content.

With that out of the way – and some may be surprised at this (but don’t be, I did wish the above to be both emphatic, but constructive), I’d like to thank the entire team at ArenaNet for both making this wonderful game, and also for creating two great additions to the game (Halloween and Lost Shores) in an incredibly short time frame! This augurs well for a great future for GW2, something that I’m sure all players look forward to.

I would also like to thank the team at ArenaNet for listening, and caring about the game as passionately as they obviously do – much feedback has been given on these forums in the past 2-3 months, and I for one am impressed at the amount of feedback that has obviously been read, considered and implemented.

I’m not so sure it would be quite as much work as some folk imagine – though there will be quite a lot on the secuity side, I imagine.

Just in case folks posting here aren’t aware, the BLTP is implemented as a web service, and it is this that http://www.gw2spidy.com uses to present data for pricing already.

For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen any real change in the number of Ectos I salvage in the last day, week, or month.

Usual is 1 ecto per rare, sometimes 2, sometimes 0, occasionally 3.

From my own experience (which is all I can attest to), I don’t think anything has changed.

Whilst your views and opinions are respected, please don’t forget you speak on behalf of yourself with regard to some of these things.

As an example “Or why I can make astronomical 5 (!) characters without buying additional slots. Who the hell needs more than 5 characters, in like ever?”

Answer: I have already purchased 2 more character slots and will likely buy even more. Hence, having these for sale in the gem store is a good thing – for me, but maybe not for everyone.

Ultimately, what you choose to spend gems on will differ from other people’s spending, and thus, whilst many items in the gem store may not be something you will buy, others will. Also remember too, the game has been out a little over 2 months, I am sure as time goes on, the number of items in the gem store will increase (as I seem to recall it did in GW1?)

I think many people get what 5 hours a week means. I spent 1/300th of that amount of time to arrive at this page: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Crafting_materials

I then tested the results by randomly selecting Engraved Totems, and used that link to arrive at: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Engraved_Totem

That page told me I should go to Timberline Falls and kill Grawl.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding, maybe there’s something I don’t “get” from your initial post – but there, in a moment of time, is the answer you’re looking for? I would imagine?

TheGreatA.4192:

There has only been a single one-time event as of yet and it was a cutscene. I doubt you’ll miss much of the action even if you miss the “event”, which is not necessarily even an event.

You’re right, there has only been one “One time event” so far.

Flipping the coin, this upcoming “One time event” is suggested to go for a few hours (all of which are unavoidably unattendable by certain time zones), and appear to be much more than a “Cut Scene”.

As a result, those of us who know already that this several hours of content will be something they’re unable to attend would respectfully like to know what achievements and/or items and/or content we will be missing – whilst providing hopefully constructive and polite feedback to the game publishers that having such an amount of content that particular segements of their client base are unable to attend may cause some level of disenfranchisment amongst those clients.

Blackmoon.6837:

I just ran into a sound bug that never happened before. I had just finished fighting the Claw of Jormag. I used a waypoint to LA and then all sound cut off and I got this strange alarm type noise that would repeat over and over.

The sound bug has been around for a while, and is mentioned in other threads (you may not have found them, this usually happens to folks in WvW).

Try setting the quality of your sound in options 1 notch down from “Highest”.

It might help to clarify which event in which zone you’re talking about?

I think I know the one (Bloodtide Coast), and whilst I’d agree with you assuming my guess of the event and location is right, clarifying this will assist others in giving meaningful feedback too

With a very high degree of respect to ArenaNet for making a great game to play, I’d like to second this.

Many of us don’t really even have a viable option to plan around these events – they’re occurring when we’re working (Oceanic), or at otherwise impossible-to-play times.

I do recognise the need to start an event at some point in time, and I recognise the need to stop an event at a later point in time. It would be nice, however, if some of these events weren’t an automatic “Sorry, you can’t partake in this because of where you live”. The solution could be to design them as staged, or repeatable, or phased events – though in saying that, I will readily admit, I’m no content designer, so I’m speaking out of turn.

Would it be possible please to find out if there will be some reward or item or achievement that those absolutely unable to attend these one time events will miss out on? I do appreciate this wasn’t the case with Halloween, and that is appreciated, but the “concern” does remain that one day, this may happen.

Once again, thank you ArenaNet for making such a great game, I hope future posters in this thread can keep this constructive, voicing their concerns and feedback!

I’d be checking your version of graphics card drivers as well as Aeri’s suggestings above.

This sort of thing I’ve seen once before myself, and it was outdated drivers. If you’re wondering why it worked yesterday and not today type of thing, a game update may finally have caused the old drivers you were using to finally not work properly.

Would be curious to hear from those here of the make & model of graphics card & driver version.

I too thought I was going slightly loopy when I saw this happen in the Bloodtide Coast earlier today!

It disappeared very quickly, and I was unable to make it reappear by moving away and coming back.

No biggie, but just adding to the location list/confirmation it’s happening

I would assume you’re both now in the position of being able to buy things, and see your gems etc.

My suspicion, based on the time you posted, is that the issue was caused by: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Billing-Maintenance-2-NOV-7-00AM-PDT

Mr Smith, I will simply, and politely echo Ryuujin’s request for this sort of information when it can be made available. I recognise and appreciate it’s too early just yet to deliver this, but I did want to “register” my interest in seeing these numbers.

Firebaall, as a quick question, do you understand the various line graphs that GW2Spidy presents in a graph, and what each of the pieces of graphed information mean?

I’m not trying to be nasty or condescending here – I am genuinely wondering if you’re misunderstanding the information presented.

What you’re seeing here in the case of chilli peppers is simply a large upward shift in the price they’re listed at, and a small upward movement in the buy order price (that interestingly does not mirror the upward spike in list price).

As someone said, this may mean that someone listed the item with a high price, perhaps on seeing that the market was almost out of supply (which again is a fact you can check with the graphed information, and in fact, this appears to be the case).

There’s no market manipulation here, this is known as capitalism… when supply of an item is low, price(s) will increase.

Healix.5819:

Daily achievement – though I haven’t seen it give an extra item since the karma jugs were added <snip>

I can confirm that not only does completing the daily give the additional items still, I have actually received a BL Salvage kit via completing the daily.

Items I’ve seen since the introduction of the Karma Jug include BL Salvage kit, and Merchant Express.

Sitting down and reading the details of what went into making the fountain leads to a good insight of the types of things that go into many of the things in game that we take for granted.

Thank you for sharing that detail, Mr Foreman! I won’t say that I take many things in the game for granted – the game itself, the scenery and overall design do continue to amaze me, but this sort of detail and information just provide more reasons for amazement at what may appear to be “trivial” things when looked at casually!

I hate to say this, but I have only a vague clue of what you’re referring to/raising as an issue having read your post.

Perhaps editing it, using some punctuation, and clearly explaining what issue you’re having might allow us to assist?

Your Omnomberry Bars also will show in the tooltip (I’m going from memory, so forgive me if my numbers are wrong);

30% Magic Find
+40% gold from monsters

As above, the Magic Find will increase your chances fro higher quality drops. The +40% gold will increase the amount of coin you receive (from those monsters who drop coin) – but does not affect heart completion or event completion award coin.

Flyfunner.2093:

---

The gold site has this whole security system and is a middle man, you pay them, they pay the gold seller AFTER you confirm you got the gold in game. they even use mobile authentication.

This, of course, means you’ve made the assumption that this alleged “middle man” is completely trustworthy, and in fact, isn’t “in the pocket” of the gold seller(s) already.

Dollars to doughnuts they are, and it’s all a “front” scam to reassure people. I’m not saying you won’t get your gold – you may, but the chance of it doesn’t increase because of this alleged “neutral middle man”.

Having said all that, I will say one more thing. Don’t buy gold from any seller, any time. Not only is it against ToS, it’s a bannable offence (as it should be).

If in doubt, on this advice, refer to comments earlier in this thread about buying a boosted (stolen) car versus one from a dealer. Of course the criminal can afford to sell it cheaper – they didn’t have to make it in the first place. Hint: Gold sellers rarely go out in the game world with someone behind the keyboard and “earn” gold… they use bots, and stolen/hacked accounts.

Eigen.4168:

I would bet there are people who are trying for the endless tonic, which will be out of reach after tomorrow. <snip>

I was of the impression that this could drop out of an ToT bag, and thus would not be out of reach, assuming one had access to ToT bags?

Whilst I will agree that getting the 6 books solo this time would be difficult/impossible for a low level character, I will also say that the game caters quite well for making it possible.

Today, myself, on a level 80 Ranger, together with another level 80 Ranger, successfully (and I might add, with little to no trouble), happily escorted fellow guild members (level 24 and 35) together with another gentleman we ran into along the way (level 23) to complete all 6 books – and had a whole lot of fun along the way to boot.

Dare I say it, but this is an MMO, not a single player game, and thus, I’d hope people take advantage of that, use the opportunities to group up! It makes playing a lot more fun

Two very simple words but very sincerely said; Thank You!

This will save a lot of hassle for many people who love helping others by crafting things for them

Kudos to you!

I will generally salvage out an average of 1-2 rares a day (talking level 70+).

I always use a Black Lion salvage kit for these salvages, and I can say that it’s rare for me to salvage something and not receive a Glob of Ectoplasm, and sometimes, I will get 2 or 3 instead of 1. My gut feeling tells me I get extras more often than I get 0, so on average, I would say I salvage a minimum of 1 per salvage on average.

Despite comments I’ve seen regarding a possible change in the salvaging of items to Ectos reveived, my experience in these numbers has been very consistent over the last 3-4 weeks (the time I began these salvages). I’m not saying people haven’t had a run of bad luck, all I can attest to is my own experience above.

I’d commented earlier in this thread of my search – and inability to find Vanilla Beans.

This post is my chance to stop by, and say “thank you” for hearing the call on this from myself and others, as I note in the patch notes this has now been solved.

Thank you!

I joined this guild about 6 weeks before the game went live, and spent that time – as everyone else in the guild had – getting to know an exceptional group of people whom I now call my extended family.

If playing GW2 in a friendly, mature, PG-13 friendly environment, where mutual respect and help is taken as par for the course is appealing to you, I cannot recommend this guild highly enough.

Guild members are on a first name basis, and the welcoming attitude is something I look forward to enjoying every day.

Just now I noticed 85 Raspberry Peach Bars on the Trading Post for 1s 0c each.

I decided to buy these, and had the confirmation window telling me I was about to buy 85 bars for a total cost of 85s.

When I pressed “Buy”, this price changed to 1g 7s 95c – the next cheapest listed on the TP were 1s 27c each.

I believe if the offer in the window is no longer available, the transaction should fail (or in case some are available at the desired price, complete only those items that are available at the offered price).

As you can imagine, this type of automatic buying of the next cheapest can severely impact a player negatively – if you were not prepared to buy the items at the 1s 27c price, you’d be stuck with them, and be out a reasonable amount of coin as a result.

I’m starting to come to the conclusion (having spent a long time farming specifically for Vanilla Beans, and finding less than a handful (5)), that what the ultimate solution may be is to introduce Harry van Butterball as an NPC in major cities.

He trades 10 butter for 1 Vanilla Bean. Would seriously give me the impetus and motivation to pick up cooking, which I abandoned a while ago in favour of just buying the food I want off the TP – the food I want to make for myself requires Vanilla Beans, and not being able to secure a semi-reasonable suppy makes cooking pointless.

Thanks most kindly for your work on this – I’m sure these guides will lead me to some more nodes I haven’t yet found!

Bookmarked both pages

I’m going to update my original information on page 1 – that was where I said I had 5 Vanilla Beans after a few weeks, and had decided to spend one to discover a recipe.

I spent about 2 hours in Caledon Forest, and found none. I went all over Queensdale, to no effect. I went to Sparkfly Fen, cleared half the zone, and found none.

But, when I logged back in to Sparkfly Fen a few hours later, for a second shot, one node gave me three beans.

As a result, I now have a total of 7 Vanilla Beans. To put this into some context, I play a minimum of 4 hours a day, every day, since head start (I know these weren’t always a drop though), and weekends I play 12 hours a day minimum. This thread was posted 19 days ago, and that was after the change to this item to have it drop, rather than be purchased.

That means, I have played somewhere around 108 hours since this thread was posted, and found 3 Vanilla Beans. Yes, I will certainly say up front that I haven’t actively been looking for all that time, but I do herb everything I come across, too – and tend not to spend much time in Orr, and to add to that I have several alts that get played from time to time.

Mind – I’m not ranting here – I did want to present the facts of the situation here to update knowledge on this topic – but I would have to add that cooking on the character that’s doing that discipline for me has pretty much stalled – mainly because I feel there’s little point in levelling it (my desire being to make Raspberry Peach Bar and Omnomberry Bar for myself – but without a good supply of Vanilla Beans, that won’t be possible).

I would also have to agree on this – I took a mid level character into WvW recently (first time in on live), and if the repair bills I paid on that character (mix of greens and blues) translates to level 80 with exotic gear, I would also have to agree and say the cost of repair bills in WvW would severely curtail my WvW activities.

As a result, with the greatest respect to ArenaNet, I would also like to add my “vote” to remove, or drastically reduce, repair costs in WvW please.

Here’s my experience – and please, I say all of this with a smile, as I know there are things in game that still need to be tweaked, and perhaps vanilla beans are one of them – I don’t let things like this bother me, as I know all will work out fine in the end, and I’m too old to QQ about stuff

I have a couple of characters in their teens, and a level 80. All of my toons gather whatever herbs are out there – always – as a rule, and without fail.

In all the time I’ve been playing (minimum 4 hours per day, every day, without fail, and 12 hours per day on weekends), I have… 5 vanilla beans.

I used one yesterday to discover a recipe. I’m holding on to the other 4, and have Lionguard posted to defend them <jks>.

Lighthearted humor aside, I can support a call for a more plentiful supply of these

I’d like to note that I came here to specifically make this same suggestion – being able to filter by light/medium/heavy armor when searching, and to be able to preview from the Trading Post.

So, instead, I will add here my agreement and polite request that if these were possible to implement, it would be very much appreciated – I’m sure by many players!

Linsey, for feedback, I noticed that the drops of Butter and Chocolate Bars have reduced. I actually never personally found Chocolate Bars to be a problem, if my memory serves, I have 43 of those in my bank (note, I have no character doing cooking at this point in time, so they are not being used).

That also means I have no real-world idea of how much Butter will actually be needed to both level the cooking craft, or continue making useful foods for high level toons.

I can tell you I got rid of a stack of butter (assembled within 1-2 days of normal play) a few days ago, when the price on the Trading Post went up, and I am now back to somewhere near 200 in my bank.

Whilst I couldn’t tell you the date that I noticed the drop rate change for Butter, I will say it was noticeable, and seems much more reasonable now (from an outside-of-the-craft point of view)

I think the remaining “factor” in all this now would be to check that the previous loot contained in bags (both in terms of diversity and quantity) are back to where they were, and see if it’s possible to add the Butter and Chocolate Bar drops to the mix – please don’t take this as a complaint, but I will have to echo the overall sentiment that I personally have found certain blue crafting materials, and potentially some cloths and leather may be in a slight shortage situation.

Note – this is my own experience only, and I may have been unlucky, or have not attended the required zone-levels to see the drops personally.

Thank you, as always, for the hard work you guys have put into the game – it’s a sheer joy to play, and I hope that “niggles” like this, that are very temporary, don’t cause you guys too much angst

Just logged in to test this as a member of a guild of 100 – and I am the only person in guild.

Yes, the guild exists and shows when I hit “G”, I am 1/1 person online.

All previously earned upgrades in the guild appear to be gone.

EDIT: This seems to have affected myself (only?) – another guild member has logged in and all is normal.

EDIT2: Guild member who is in guild reports our guild bank appears to be missing.

Crica.1503:

which is why i said “trade” IE: sell what you get that you dont need so you can afford to buy what you do need…

you are acting like the trading post doesn’t exist AT ALL…

There is another side to this coin, though. Yes, you’re absolutely correct in saying that one could use the Trading Post to buy & sell materials they want or need.

There are some folks, though, that like or aim for the sense of achievement of having provided all their own materials to level. Whilst that may not be something all enjoy, or would aim for, the reality is some may choose to do that, and I don’t believe they could be labelled “wrong” for wanting to achieve this.

The game surely is in early days, and it may be that some things may need to be adjusted yet – I don’t presume to second guess the intent of the developers!

I would, however, agree that the basic pillar of all professions should be something the crafter can gather, rather than being reliant on random drops, to obtain. The reality of an armorsmith, or weaponsmith, having their basic material available in game as a gathering node places some level of disadvantage to tailors and leatherworkers (and, yes, potentially to a lesser degree other professions).

This would “level the playing field” between all professions – the exception would (and should) remain cooking, as there is no single “basic” material required for it.