Guild Wars 2

Here’s the post in question:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/January-WvW-culling-loading-changes/first#post1272774

I would play an MMO that is designed around not needing loot as a player motivation. GW2 isn’t designed that way, so simply removing the loot wouldn’t work.

morrolan.9608:

Its not necessarily about being rewarded its about having goals and objectives.

Many MMO players seem to have forgotten that there are other goals than PHAT LOOTZ!

Hollow.9758:

The last part i cannot find. and i don’t know which Config to copy and paste :/ I’d really like to turn the LOD distance and shading up and get 30 fps or over, but i can’t. and having the amd radeon 6970 hd m its really lame!

Shading and LOD should not have that much of an impact to force you below 30fps. What are your settings for shadows, sampling and reflections? Neither should be at maximum.

130 is not divisible by 4. Typo? Or reused 2 Exotics that were forged during the set?
And why is this hidden in the bug forum?

There is nothing to dismantle. MIB happens always, everywhere. It’s a fundamental principle of human perception. How and when to apply it in interface design is a science all to itself. It is often beneficial to design interfaces with regards to peripheral information, meaning to intentionally put information outside of the center of attention.

In case you missed it, I’m not arguing your facts, I’m arguing the conclusions you draw from them.

Hitting command + tab takes you back to the desktop (or switches between other apps). You can resume the game later by clicking on the dock icon or cmd-tabbing again.

The percentage is always about the number of files, not file size. If it starts with big files, this can be very misleading when you try to calculate the remaining download.

In Foxens case, it might actually try to download the whole game again due to corrupted data, which would something short of 20GB. Very unfortunate. Regular backups can help with that in the future. Or a friend close by where you can copy the game files from.

‘poorly designed’ is not even close to a ‘scientifically established fact’ . How about we keep the discussion where it belongs, in the realm of personal opinion and experience, and don’t try to impose on others by spouting half-truths about a subject none of the people here have sufficient expertise in?

You can retain at least partial functionality of your media keys and only change the behavior of some f-keys with an app like FunctionFlip.
With that app, you can define that only the special functions of f1 to f4 are disabled, which leaves your media and volume controls intact.

Mayu:
Open Finder, it’s the 5th option in your menu bar at the top of the screen. Make sure to follow the steps exactly as described above..

knives.6345:

But they don’t want to work hard for it. It’s like telling ANet indirectly “hey, gimme stuff”.

Common misconception. It’s not about ‘gimme stuff’, it’s about ‘make me do something interesting instead of something repetitive and boring in order to earn my stuff’.

This is a game. We’re not supposed to work hard. Does not mean everything has to be instant, it just has to be interesting.

Can’t say I’ve ever been excluded from a group with my Ele. OP seems to play on a server with unusual high concentration of idiots.

I’d stop doubting my own game’s design and go into full-blown production mode to expand on the event system.

Dungeon change was overdue, but will most likely require further encounter balancing and players to reconsider rebuilding for survivability and playing more supportive.
Explorable modes are supposed to be hard, and for the longest time, they weren’t.

Good change imo, nothing to hate there.

That’s not an option, really. Bugfix updates need to happen as often as possible to address issues, and content updates will happen because the players want the new content. It’s how these games work. There will be at least 2 more, larger updates in the next 2 months, so you may want to look for alternative connections.
Maybe you have a public access nearby (library, university) where you can download big updates?

Reread the posts on the first page, it’s all explained. Most importantly, it’s explained why this doesn’t actually seem to work.

No, users could never change the UI. Arenanet changed it between beta phases.

How much is “a lot”? How did you measure it?

I’m not sure this is a support issue. The client works as it should, and being a demanding 3d game, it’s totally normal for it to cause the machine to heat up. The game is expected to squeeze as much performance out of the machine as possible. It’s up to the manufacturer to ensure the machine can take it.

You can reduce heat issues by setting a maximum frame rate. Look for a setting called “Frame limiter” in your graphics setting. Also make sure you don’t have external factors that make it worse. Make sure the Macbook is well ventilated, don’t use it on a blanket or cushion etc.

Other than that, there’s little you can do. MacBooks aren’t designed for gaming, they have less tolerance for running under full power for prolonged time.

Yes, number of simultaneous key presses is unlikely to be the culprit, or this issue would appear on both Windows and OSX. It only seems to be a problem on the Mac client though.

Eve actually seems to be a Cider port too, so is Warhammer for example. And did ESO really confirm a native Mac port? I only saw that it will be released for Mac, but not info towards technology used.

Edit: found the info, proper multi-platform engine, no cider port for ESO. Nice!

Never ‘bothered’ to do them , because it’s not bothering, I tend to just get it automatically while playing.
Worst case so far was having to find 1 or 2 additional mob types before logging off.

Likely going to happen less frequently, but not going away completely.

This has nothing to do with honesty. They answer the questions that they actually have an answer to.
How is it usefull to anyone to try and force Arenanet to make speculations about what they may or may not do in the future? That’s just more fodder for speculation among the fans and eventually leads to bitter remarks and dissapointment when whatever they dreamed up in their minds doesn’t come true.

http://gw2lfg.com/

You may want to have a look at that site. This discussion forum is probably not the best place for your request

qaasq.5061:

Would this help?

Would what help? Buying that MacBook? No, that wouldn’t help at all. The 13inch model is not suited for demanding games.

Lilsteeles recommendation is worth trying: the game runs much better under Windows, especially when your hardware is at the bottom of the performance scale.

Well, as long as you had fun doing this … congrats, I guess?

The percentage is about number of files, not file size.
Download will still be a few GBs, though should be less than 9.

Your frame rate will be cut in half simply because of how 3D works, so it’s only really recommended if you can run it stable at high frame rates, meaning above 60, or better yet, above 120.

Actually, keep shadows low or off.
It’s probably the setting with the highest impact on performance, especially in situations with many players on screen.

What resolution are you going to play on?

Go to the graphics options and set the frame limiter to 30 FPS. That should prevent it from getting too hot.

A 2009 MacBook (Non-Pro) doesn’t have enough power to run the game at a decent framerate, at least not in OSX.

If you can’t afford a new one, you should definitely look at BootCamp/Windows as an alternative. I’d recommend Windows 7, but Win8 is pretty affordable currently, and it works too. You can download and test Windows for free, if you want to make sure it works, before you actually spend money on it.
A larger harddrive to have enough space for both systems is much less expensive than a new MacBook.
Mystogan seems to have had a really bad experience, which can happen, but personally I used Bootcamp on two MacBooks and an iMac and had no problems.

If none of the other tips help to improve frame rates, consider making a BootCamp installation. The client will run significantly better on Windows.

There are 2 /Library folders on a Mac system, one in your user folder, and one that is hidden by default. OP may have linked the wrong one.
Open Finder, click on “Go to” while holding alt/option key. You should see a second /Library folder pop up in the menu. That’s the one.

If you have a card with 256MB, there’s nothing for you to change though, that’s the default setting.

Never owned a mini. First machine was a self-built PC running OSX, roughly equivalent to a 2007 MacPro. Current is a brand-new 27inch iMac with upgrades.

yes
yes
yes
no
no
yes
no
no
no
yes
yes
yes, major design direction has just been confirmed

also, why not set up a free poll and link to it, instead of this unwieldy mess?

I used to play on an older machine that was a bit closer to the minimum speccs, now I use a new iMac. On both machines, the Windows version ran about 20% faster, even with Windows allowing for higher quality settings.
And yes, if Windows, use Bootcamp. Parallels or VMWare are not suited for games.

Not really. 4GB is already more than GW2 uses.

Good point by Tick Tock. I did not consider the difference for integrated graphics. It should not be noticable with a dedicated graphics card though, don’t they have seperate memory? And you don’t use both chips at once.

For gaming in general, a Mac with a dedicated graphics card is preferable over one with integrated Intel graphics.
For Guild Wars specifically, the game is also very reliant on the main processor, so higher-clocked processors are better. Number of cores is less important, chosing an i7 over an i5 is only a small improvement (due to clock speed, not due to cores).

With current MacBookPros, the models with seperate Nvidia graphics are fine (the non-retina version, unless you need that for something else) .
Both iMac lines are good, as long as you upgrade the graphics card to the highest one available for either size.

If you’re looking for a cheaper deal with a last-gen model, still look for one with dedicated graphics, and if possible also the upgraded graphics card.

You will also get a significantly better framerate when running it on Windows via BootCamp, so a larger harddrive to be able to use both systems is helpful.

Oh, I very much prefer a native client! The current performance difference and additional limitations mean I still have to keep a Windows installation at hand for any prolonged game session. Even though a native client still would perform slightly worse due to OSX, the current solution cannot be their long-term plan.

I should probably retract ‘majority’ concerning the ports, as I haven’t made the count, but there definitely are Cider ports on the app store, Assassins Creed 2 for example. There are a few companies that specialize in buying game licenses and making Cider ports for OSX.

While I do support the call for a native OSX client, there are 2 things I like to point out:

1. Your last point (app store) is likely not valid. There are already Cider ports on the app store, the majority of ported PC games on there actually uses Cider or similar technology. There are probably other reasons why the game isn’t on the app store (profit margin, account purchase model, in-app purchase restrictions)

2. Petitions are not allowed on these forums. You were smart and didn’t call this a petition, and you didn’t call for people just to /sign or any such nonsense. So please everyone, make sure this is a discussion, not a petition. Thank you.

marnick.4305:

Mike O’Brien needs about a million dollars lying on his desk every month.

I learned from a very reliable source on the internet that he loves to bath in it at least once a day.

Could this be the beginning of Arenanets very own promised-me-a-pony meme?

Could you test something?
In the settings there’s an option to change the size of the UI. Try both larger and smaller settings and test if it has an effect on the map display.

Also, instead of switching out the whole file with the downloaded one, try if the problem still persists if you just change the one line in your own file. It’s not too difficult, you can open it with TextEdit, it’s really just a text file.
Of course make sure to have a backup

Camera could definitely use improvements. I’d love to play Elementalist without hard-locking targets, but for that to work camera position behind my character and the angle between camera and skill trajectory would need to change.

Having played DC Universe, GW2 and TERA, I found I prefer DCUOs and GW2’s more agile combat system, especially for playing caster classes. The hybrid targeting system that sits half-way between lock-on and crosshair works really nice for this combat pace. For GW2, a slightly better camera position/angle wouldn’t hurt though.
I wasn’t too impressed with TERAs crosshair targeting, though that was more due to the specific way they chose to implement it. It just wasn’t very interesting to play for a ranged caster.
GW2s biggest problem with combat is that enemies don’t use enough variety in their skills. They become too predictable, and it’s more about fighting through attrition than using your skills intelligently.

Here’s another first hand experience with the new 27inch iMac. Slightly different setup than Korval (i5 and 8GB RAM), but largely the same result.
Excluding Lions Arch and crowded WvW battles, the client reaches 60 FPS when standing still, at native resolution with most settings maxed or close to maxed. Just like on my older machine, perfomance drops significantly whenever there’s lots of camera movement. This also leads to a lot of screen tearing, and using Vsync to counter it unfortunately guts FPS even more.
That seems to be the fundamental weakness of the OSX client, as playing on Windows on the same machine those FPS drops are much less severe, and thats with even higher settings.

AABell, you’re experience should be comparable to, maybe even better than mine, since you’ll play at lower resolution, which should compensate for the slower graphics card in the 21inch.

I’d rather put a game down for a while and come back later then feel coerced to keep playing to collect incremental upgrades that are ultimately still meaningless. The whole loot reward design hasn’t really worked for me in years.
I was hoping Arenanet would focus more of their development effort on designing non-loot based reward systems for PvE. Though it seems the next updates may actually bring some of that.