Guild Wars 2

FrouFrou.4958:

Morgenes.6985:

Respect to the warrior from Tchu (and his IC guardian friend) this morning on Abbadon BL, real good fighting and you can handle your warrior very well.

And to the thief from judge who annoyed us the whole day “man you’re really an annoying harassment!”
Sorry that we’re ignoring you most of the time, but we have better to do, than trying to kill an perma stealth thief.

btw. the gandara-reset this morning (whole BL except of hills) was done with about 6-8 guys.
And we ran this noon mostly with 5-12 people, so don’t say we’re only blobbing.

fyi this evening ADAC will run guild internal (20-35 people). Sadly I can’t join before 9 pm because of WT training.

I solemnly swear that he is up to no good.

It’s simply because Abbaddon’s started making trouble in his neighbourhood.

So… you’re leading a large guild which you’re splitting, and from that large guild you can’t find anyone you like/trust/respect enough to co-lead with you? No officers?

…

If you want to deal damage and fight in WvW; Human.
If you want to take, control and lead a fight in WvW; Norn.
If you’re awesome; Charr.

Charr Guardians. Wrong, yet right.

Vincavec.8350:

Vortigern.1987:

Ragnar.4257:

Parthis.2091:

Belma.3986:

-snip-

Is [ADAC] (which i’m realiably informed stands for [Aim Das Arrow Carts]) up for some GvG this week? 10v10. JDGE vs ADAC, bring your 10 best?

And to cast the net wider, any MS guilds up for some?

You should ask for 10v30, then ADAC might consider it.

Not sure who would win tho :/

I guess [ADAC] is able to bring 30 people too , or at least 20, although it is nice of you that you think they can win fights outnumbered 1:3.

The irony is strong with this one >.<

Heh.

Seriously, [ADAC], we’re up for some GvG. 10v10 (or bring 15 if you like, we’ll fill up to 15 if we can on the night).

Wednesday?

I just don’t get Abbaddons. You like to talk about how you don’t blob and you do have WvW guilds and great players and… yet you never take part in the other stuff, like GvG. It’s fun. You like fun, right? Win or lose it’s fun. Hell, you could turn up and slaughter us, it’d still be fun for us.

Shout out to [Pony] for some GvG on Thursday – we’re looking forward to it.

I hate to be that guy, but here’s the thing; Play what you do well with. So many people like to proclaim that weapon X is better than weapon Y, and that if you pair X with Y you’re a bad player, and that bleh bleh bleh.

I run sword and shield and rock it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the sword; there is however an intersection between weapons, builds, player mentality, in the moment play and how all of that is augmented with your utilities and those around you.

I run a mix of PVT and Knight’s, sword+shield, Hammer as the offset weapon and a 0/15/30/20/5 build which I quite like.

As a high level;
– Scepter if you want range options.
– Sword if you want mobility and some lovely single target burst
– Mace if you want to augment the healing on the front-line.

My preferences; Sword > Mace > Scepter. Buy one of each, get a couple of guildies and go roaming.

Cake.4920:

err, no. 165% duration x .35 (65% reduction) = 57.75

So if you take melandru runes + -40 food and I take +40 food and 25 in cond duration line, my conditions last 57.75% of their normal duration

Which is fine.

Congratulations, you have an anti-class/build.

sendmark.4731:

conditions and condition builds are far from underpowered in wvw.

Indeed. They’re just bad in the zerg, and that is where most of the complainers tend to dwell.

Danicco.3568:

Well, it’s relative, it does have it’s role of being a heavy melee front-liner or support profession, but I really enjoy much much more bursting someone down with 7~14k Dragon Tooths while still playing safe in my zerg’s field than the infiltrating the enemy’s.

Well, it is indeed relative. If you fancy leading the zerg, or leading a guild group, or playing for the benefit of those around you as opposed to simply being “moar damage!1!!”, the Guardian is godly.

Built well it’s a potent 1v1. Built well it’s a potent 2v1. Built well it’s the perfect leading class.

Hello all, 1.0.1 has just been approved and released by Apple, and is now available to download. It adds real-time WvW maps for your match up, flip timers and claiming information.

I have a couple of small improvements I want to make in the next version (which is in progress and I hope to release in a week or so);

• Alerts on key events (i.e. "Gandara have just taken SM from Miller’s Sound)
• Custom Alerts (i.e. “Notify me when points on Gandara BL drop below 90”)
• When active, and Stonemist is the top running app on your device, your device will NOT go to sleep.
• iPad Interface, Stonemist will become a Universal app.

Oh, and thank you to to guys who left great reviews on the Appstore – say hi in game some time.

Belma.3986:

Mhhh, i would advice all abaddom players not to read and answer to this rubbish things written here.
Some kids say

- abaddon is blobbing – check
- abaddon used AC in there keeps – check
- abaddon plays for points – check
- abaddon loves wxps – check
- abaddon has no skill – check
- abaddon has no wvw guilds – check
- abaddons drop a lot of bags – check
- abaddons destroy our fun IG – check

So, if i forgot a point, pls copy my commentar and add your complaints. But pls, stop filling this thread with flames, hate and desperation.

Ela Zapp
(ADAC)

Ps: Compliment to 4 Gandaras today on Millersund Map: The Guild Tag was TCHU. Good fights and nice movement guys. 15 Abaddon players were not able to kill you. ,) Respect.

Is [ADAC] (which i’m realiably informed stands for [Aim Das Arrow Carts]) up for some GvG this week? 10v10. JDGE vs ADAC, bring your 10 best?

And to cast the net wider, any MS guilds up for some?

JDGE are looking for GvGs this week. 10v10 or at a push 15v15.

Tonight was painfully unimaginative.

A shout out to [YMCA] for honestly being the only german guild, from either server, to run on their own.

Identified Dye has now been downloaded 500 times – thank you!

Whenever I make a free little app for a community, game or for fun I set it a download target before coming back to it to add a new feature or two. The logic is simple; if enough people like it then it’s worth improving, and if only a small number of people like it then it’s cool if it doesn’t get new features as those people got exactly what they wanted in the first place.

Identified Dye’s target was 500 downloads, so, i’ll spend a little time adding a new feature or two next week.

The next new feature is one that i’ve wanted for a while; I want it to tell me when it finds a dye i’ve not seen before. For example, a living story patch establishes a new set of dyes – I want to know about them ASAP.

If you have an idea for a feature you’d like to see added please let me know.

I was thinking it might be nice to be able to set a “when this dye drops below this price on the TP, tell me” prompt… but that’s kind of a feature of the new app i’m working on at the moment…

Anywhere but Gandara.

Ugg Ugg.

No no.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Hi everyone,

I wanted to jump in here and clear up the confusion about why traps are unavailable. We have disabled the use of traps in WvW because of a bug that came up in the recent patch. We will be turning traps back on as soon as possible once we resolve this issue.

Hugh

PTR.
PTR.
PTR.

Whack-a-mole balancing and broken WvW fundamentals (“You cannot place siege here!” etc etc) are becoming frustrating.

Grackleflint.4956:

Roaming videos have been done to death. Roaming doesn’t help your world accomplish anything.

Can anyone link a video showing actual WvWvW tactics—trap placement, which bases to hit and how, proper use of siege and how to protect them, etc?

I can’t wait for dueling to be implemented so roamers become a thing of the past.

You don’t need actual tactics to place a trap (pro-tip; place it where you know they’ll step on it), you don’t need actual tactics to know which bases to hit and how (pro-tip; hit the ones you don’t own, face rub the gate with 100 1-spammers and that guy who built the ram out of range), you don’t need tactics for proper use of siege.

While I appreciate that the majority of videos you see are roamers and guild fights, you need to appreciate that WvW isn’t actually that complicated and that if it had more depth, scope, ambition and a layered, interesting design, we “guilds” would have more to do than roaming… because here’s another revelation… after 8 months of WvW, we actually want it to get better too.

In 8 months we’ve gained WXP (which broke things) and siege buffing trait lines. 8 months.

8 months.

As it stands now the meta is’ biggest blob wins.

So the fun? Destroying the blob.

Tower Guard.5263:

Doesn’t the sword have bad AOE dmg when compared to the GS and hammer?

Bad? No, but certainly lower and we have the luxury of equipping a GS or Hammer too. The sword in only three slots gives you; an attack chain on the auto that hits quickly, hits hard (if you gear well) and procs our burn, a teleport and blind, a single target nuke and projectile protection. It’s a great weapon that is paired up with something else to add yet more damage or utility (personally I use a shield; a knock back, projectile protection for the group and party protection).

I sometimes think people are too hung up on numbers that they overlook a well balanced weapon.

The sword isn’t a bad choice… non of the weapons are; there’s an intersection that takes place between Class, Player, Playstyle and Weapon choice, and everyone is different.

Deathmond.7328:

I am very sad that sword\shield guardian build is a bad choice…

Says who? And a bad choice for what?

I consider the sword to be one of our best and most interesting weapons.

Sure, it could be buffed, because who doesn’t like to be buffed… but it’s not a bad weapon by any stretch of the imagination.

I don’t like the tomes either tbh. Sure they have their uses, but I don’t use them. Renewed Focus is nice but also pretty boring, but I use it.

What i’d really like is something that isn’t all about personal survival, or buffing my group. I’d like a “pull an ally to you” ability. A way of getting a guildie to you if he’s over extended, or a way of pulling a Mesmer to you to get a portal at your location quickly, etc etc.

I’d like something with some strategic value and emergent use, which is ultimately what most other classes have (Battle res’s, invis, time warps, etc).

Yeah last night was better for us. A lot more fun, not quite as blobby. Thanks to dC for the GvG, and open field fights. It was nice to encounter a few more guild groups too, thanks to Army for a couple.

I was worried that this matchup was going to remain blobby but it seems to be easing off a little now that points are in place.

Apologies to the RoF players outside your main keep late last night in EB, we were 4 JDGE and a random iirc, and it may have felt like we were trying to farm you or gank you, but the truth is there was a hacking thief that we REALLY wanted to kill or at least capture as a recording. We did have some good fights though, hopefully you had fun.

Oh, and the MS [FR] speed hacker… so bad, so sad, so recorded. If you can’t even win by hacking you should probably uninstall the game.

Arvid.3829:

I’m glad Obsidian Sanctum remains a place where the traditions of old are honored by not assaulting enemies that wave and/or make other friendly gestures.
/end sarcasm

If it’s red, it’s dead.
/no sarcasm

-40% condition duration food (unless you’re talking sPvP?)

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Listening to you guys talk about who is blobbing and what a blob looks like is really poor form, at least from the RoF point of view. You guys have guild blobs that are bigger than any zerg we can put together.

I play on a lower tier server for a reason. I like to be able to roam and I basically can’t move now. I got tired of getting run over by your blobs just one hour after the reset last night.

Oh well, back to the dungeons.

All servers have blobs; that’s the meta. Some servers have bigger blobs, our definitions will be different. JDGE moved from Desolation, Viz blobbed epically.

All servers have that big guild. Gandara’s average guild size however must be around 15.

Let’s chill out with the hyperbole and just focus on fighting. If there’s a blob, dodge it. If you’re a small guild shout the map you’re running on here and let other small guilds join the same map. Setup some GvG. Ignore points; matchups are broken and random anyway. Play for fun.

Enjoy Ascalonian Catacombs.

As a buddhist I don’t buy into the basic concept behind YOLO. I’ll live many lives until, through true awareness, i’ll gain my oneness, that i’m part of the One Undivided Soul… which is… I guess… a blob.

Hmmm.

This YOLO movement has thrust me into a real quandary. And questioning faith is bad, so says people.

tbh Rav, YOLO is just a bad idea. You counter blobs by not being a blob, by out thinking them, and by sieging and defending well. If MS have a blob in the morning don’t worry about it, we’ll eventually part ways. We can’t become what we hate to counter what we hate.

Also, i’m not a buddhist.

HAI TDA.

Also I see a few shouts of GvG, while we’re not built around GvG, and we don’t do much, we’d be up for some fun on Wednesday – 10v10. Give me a whisper/mail if interested. [dc] i’ll get in touch with you guys about some.

Cliff Spradlin.3512:

multivira.7925:

I would love to make something like this for WvW so we can see where the different guilds are operating. Would this be ‘legal’ to make? Just positions for our allies.

Yes. I discussed this scenario with the WvW team, and they’re totally OK with this usage of our APIs.

Their only requirement is that player positions should not be posted publicly, since obviously it would then be used by opposing teams.

… and the impact of an overlay that allows users to send data to other users (allies) stating “blob of 80 XX here”, “20 at my position”, etc etc in WvW? Essentially, a ‘spotting mechanic’ externalised from GW2?

Lots of potential here. Will we see a mechanism that is supported by the API or the client natively? Particularly these app ideas are allowed?

Krosan.2890:

So all the complaints to abbadon for example is not about running with 60 man zergs but its about running with 60 man zergs with a different guild tag?
Ok…

No dear, all the complaints about Abbadons are about their 100+ open mic evenings (youtube it), and constant, 100% uptime blobs.

Reset is a land grab, nothing more.

EB had a Gandaran blob, but I can assure you GBL and MSBL didn’t – I wwas on both last night and it was tough.

Krosan.2890:

I really, really don’t understand why Gandara calls out other servers for blobbing (even on this thread) when all I can ever see on our borderlands are 40-50+ man Gandara zergs…
The same to Miller’s, we just lost our borders (being outmanned) to a 60+ man miller’s zerg with like 4 golems and a 40+ man gandara zerg with 8 golems yet all I see you do is call other guilds out for “blobbing”
This isn’t flaming or anything, I’d just like to know what you consider blobbing if running in 50 man groups isn’t blobbing for you…

Lots of PuGs, reset night.

Every server has it.

johnnymiller.5968:

Forgive my ignorance but I’ve had people dance on my corpse; sit on it, jump on it and fail to see what the big deal is. In my opinion and probably only my opinion; spending time getting upset over things like this you’re taking the game too seriously.

Indeed!

When we kill people we don’t like, we put a ram on their corpse. Feels more like a burial.

Mixed night for us, a little blobby at the the start, and MS, you rampaged through our Borderlines very late last night (GBL had absolutely NO defenders on, very sad and unsual showing at midnight). But it got better and we had some fun, so thanks for that all).

RoF just have fun, honestly both MS and Gandalf have a ton of small guilds… the average for Gandara must be 15 in a guild group? You’ll see more of them as the week goes on, reset is just your typical land grab and after that things settle. Anyways from what I saw last night you have some strong guilds, and some great players, it’s just that as soon as your outmanned buff hits we’re much stronger, and that’s purely down to numbers (EB proved that).

Gredunza.5031:

• I’ve defended my guild and my world with ferocity since I’ve started playing and I don’t think you’re in a position to say otherwise.

Gredunza.5031:

Little tip, if you’d like us to “come out and play,” you should consider letting us get in first.

• You lost a tower your guild claimed, and that is T3, outside your spawn and reinforced from Garrison. To take it ANY server would need more than 10 people, so that happens.
• You spent the majority of the week camped on an arrow cart on the rock at that tower (we know this because JDGE deliberately went there several times just to mesmer-yank you off that rock and kill you). It became a running joke, The Oddy Necro, master of the arrowcart.
• You have people in that tower, fighting, we can see them on the mini-map. You have no commander on. You have the map-shout out, and you have plenty of options to save that tower.
• But it’s easier to take a screenshot, stand on a cliff and proclaim it pointless.

You’ve spent time in this thread moaning about being killed as a solo player (which you ninja edited as a thankyou to one guild for not killing you).

• Red is dead.
• You’re red.
• You were also dead.
• We’re simple folks, we stay true to the mantra.
• A reiteration: Red. Is. Dead.
• If you’re on your own you’re either; a scout, on the way to join the pack, moving to your guild or running supps for repairs/building. Non of those are reasons to not nuke you on sight.
• If you want to dual, there’s a place for that. If you want to roam, roam, just accept that you’ll die. We do the same stuff, it’s fine.
• Bullet points.

You’re sullying the good name of Bill Oddy, famed Warlord and Gladian.

Also, nice additional ninja-edit on the smiley, wouldn’t want people to think you were moaning.

Wolfheart.1938:

Sword is the closest thing we have to a condition weapon, second only to torch. Why do you think its autoattack 3rd attack counts as 3 different attacks? Why do you think we reach the best burning uptime with sword/torch? Food for thoughts.

Sure, it’s the closest thing to a condi weapon, but that doesn’t make it a condi weapon. The scepter is the closest thing we have to a rifle, it doesn’t make us a warrior.

I’d like to see Torment added to the guardian as a class-level mechanic, not something that is weapon specific. ALL builds, regardless of weapon, have kiting problems. Even Scepter users (who you need to be close to in order to be punishing). So given our huge focus on being in or close to melee range, Torment seems like a natural fit for all builds.

I’m a 1H sword user btw, it’s my main weapon of choice (1Hs+Shield, Hammer). I’d like to be able to apply Torment… just not with an auto attack, because getting that auto-attack chain off is exactly the problem we’re discussing.

Hey chaps. I have no intention to put one together for Android any time soon (as honestly, I don’t overly enjoy developing for Android, I’m an iOS developer by trade). But the API is open, so if any android developer would like to put one together i’ll happily bundle up the assets i’ve made and help out with how it works.

Thanks to the hundreds of people who’ve downloaded this. If you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to throw them at me. Identified is and always will be free.

Reviews and feedback on the Appstore are always appreciated.

Smix.1269:

It’s a really nice looking app. Will you be creating a version (or update) for iPad?

Of course I could already run it on an iPad already, but iPhone apps always look bad when blown up to fill the iPads screen.

Either way, nice work.

Yeah, I have a working Universal build which will be the next version (not the one recently submitted, the one after). It has a different interface (the iPad, in landscape, has enough screen-realestate to show all maps at once, with the score charts too).

Just testing at the moment.

The idea really behind the app, and the way I use it, is to sit my iPhone/iPad in a dock next to my monitor and use it as a dedicated WvW display so I don’t need anything overlaying the game.

Next update has;
– Event logs.
– Notifications for specific flips or conditions (i.e. tell me when X has no buff, tell me when SM flips)
– iPad UI.

hallonknopp.6532:

Parthis.2091:

Nemesys.7251:

half+half= 1 +half =1.5 hmmmm…,nite.

It’s AG blob math.

You know, 30 guildies and 42 PuGs is still only 28 guildies. Or something. I don’t know. It’s late. Get out of my house.

How can it be AG blob math, when posted of a Gandara? Sounds more like your way of counting on the perfect Gandara need some improvment.

Morning Mr Grumpy Pants.

Deathmond.7328:

PLS give torment to sword auto-attack!

Good lord no.

The sword isn’t a condi weapon. At all.

Mesmers are getting Torment on Scepter, which on reflection is fine. Anything to cut down the number of crappy shatter mesmers out there.

The problems I see with reflection though; our shout→soldier builds are still going to be #1, and, the classes that really need a mechanic to punish the kiters aren’t getting Torment.

Torment on VoJ or traited into symbols would be nice… and perhaps Sword + Scepter could finally get a symbol? pls?

Deathmond.7328:

Why you can`t make Zealot`s Defense “cast on move”?
Why you can`t put new condition(torment) into Flashing blade?

I run 1H sword as my main weapon. I honestly think ZD is fine; you can use it defensively, or, you can use it to punish people who get close. I’m fine with that.

Torment on FB also seems a little OP, given as it’s a low cool down. I’d sooner see VoJ updated via a trait to add Torment in small amounts, rather than tagging it to the 1H.

Nemesys.7251:

half+half= 1 +half =1.5 hmmmm…,nite.

It’s AG blob math.

You know, 30 guildies and 42 PuGs is still only 28 guildies. Or something. I don’t know. It’s late. Get out of my house.

Sebulon.7683:

So Thieves get torment..? Thieves, out of all the classes! How in the name of duck are guardians, warriors etc. supposed to ever catch them now?? This is such nullscript…

QFT.

Anet, any plans to ever have a PTR for this stuff? With the utmost respect you can’t balance in a vacuum, and for all the testing you can do you’re hardly going to ever recreate the conditions of WvW fights. Maybe three PTR servers so WvW can be tested too with these major changes?

I don’t get the mesmer change. It’s already strong with confusion, so now, it’s a class that can punish you for using abilities and punish you for moving. I play a mesmer, I don’t see why it needs a buff. But, I guess there could be nerfs in there to offset.

I swear though, if Torment is tagged onto the shatter mechanic this is, IMHO, broken. It’s fine as it is.

More importantly to all of this though, is WHERE IS THE ACROSS-THE-GAME AOE REBALANCE.

AoE is getting wildly out of hand.

Anyone else read those patch features and think “YES YES BUT HOW DO I ACTUALLY BECOME A MOTHER kittenING SKY PIRATE?!!”

I did. And I feel no shame.

It’d make hitting hills easier.

The sexual tension in this thread is too much. You guys should just stop flirting and get down to it.

Dark Lord Killer.9473:

(To all those who will misinterpret this, I’m not saying I’m a good player, I’m not, I’m just saying he doesn’t know me )

You end your sentences with clauses in brackets that degrade your own arguments, capped with a smiley.

You’ve convinced yourself of your own arguments and won’t listen to any other. You blob, but you’ve justified it to yourself.

You siege, but you’re not as bad as the worst, so that’s OK under your justification.

You’re complaining about a situation that started with your world’s actions, which you’ve admitted, yet feel it’s everyone else’s fault.

Finally you’re awesome, but you’re not saying you’re good, because who wants to be proven wrong? So instead it’s “You don’t know me, I ain’t no badge!”. kek.

I think we know exactly the kind of person you are. There are those that talk and those that do. You’re a talker. A reoccurring moral bastion on an internet forum, a Gladian no less. And you’re right, I don’t really know you, but then I don’t particularly want to, you don’t strike me as reasonable, intelligent or talented. You strike me as fanatical, narrow minded and self-righteous. I run JDGE. If you call my guild out for responding to the bottom-of-the-barrell play you and your server friendos have adopted, so be it. I couldn’t tell you which guilds you had in your blob last night, they meshed into one so well, so i’ll take the distinct identification of Gandara’s guilds as a compliment.

Our primetime JDGE blob of 11 thanks you for the fun last night.

HAI TDA.

Anyways, as fun as this thread isn’t, let’s just agree that AG had more guilds, don’t now, still has some guilds that roam, praise to them, has a blob on their BL which we’re fine with, GBL blobs too, and that guilds on any server will also support other guilds… that’s what makes Gandara what it is and the reason lots of small guilds find their home here.

Dark Lord Killer.9473:

I will not accept it, never, I’m a proud Gladian and will defend our pride till the day I die!

No Dear, you’re a try-hard. A warrior on the forums and a badge on the battlefield.

Turtles. All. The. Way. Down.

HAI TDA.

Dark Lord Killer.9473:

Great example now: [JDGE] [TDA] [XxX] [ONS] GG Gandara!

You guys are turtles all the way down.

If you don’t want to be compared to a blobby, siege obsessed server, don’t play like a blobby siege obsessed server. If you HAVE to, because you’ve lost a lot of guilds, then just accept that you have to. It’s np. Tonight was blobby and not much fun on your BL.

The guilds listed didn’t choose to play along side each other, and the night started without a single commander. After a while ALL guilds tagged up because we were tired of running into each other trying to find fights. That’s the contract; action, reaction. The guilds didn’t start out co-working, they had to.

In the end what is left? You ran two massive blobs, by your own admission. Accept it and move on. The QQ is getting boring.

A little sneak peak at the update. Apple are a little slower than usual at the moment with submissions, but expect to see this update live in a few days.

Grrraaaaaaaaaaaattttsss!

Bolt. So good.

I need two more Vistas in EB, in hard to conquer keeps (why oh why did I just not get them in the past? Stupidface is face).

Two Vistas, and then, Bolt too.

Grats again man.

Thanks for the confirmation Cliff.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Parthis.2091:

DarkSpirit.7046:

Parthis.2091:

If Anet are including this it would be good to at the very least give it a name (as contractually, it should have a name), but I suspect it’s a test server, or something, and shouldn’t be there.

Regardless it is causing problems to many apps.

ArenaNet is a company with many teams. One team may not realize the impact it has on the other.

The best way to protect your app is to just you make your app more robust since screening for null, if you need to, is not difficult.

You don’t need to explain software development concepts, or how large companies do things.

Name is pretty much mandatory in this context, so, it either needs a name or isn’t intended to make it into the dataset. There’s robustness, and then there’s ensuring every field is null-checked on the client as opposed to guaranteed by the service; on a field like ‘name’ in a read-only, user-focused API, that’s excessive.

We have a totally different view of what Robust Programming is then.

http://nob.cs.ucdavis.edu/bishop/secprog/robust.html

Accidents and bugs do happen regardless of how much we hate them. Don’t trust any data from the Internet, even if your app has to fail due to unrecoverable errors, it should fail gracefully.

We really don’t have a differing view on Robust Programming, Defensive programming or any other of the popularised terms meaning ’don’t write fragile code’. It’s all well and good taking the “yes you should have conditioned against that” line, but given that it’s an API that specifically exists to do one thing, and one thing only, and it’s doing that one thing differently now then it’s entirely understandable why some apps and frameworks are caught out, that’s all I was saying.

You can’t simply say “a null name from an API that deals in world names must be ignored” – that’s not robust, that is an assumption. Should it never make it into the dataset at the client end, or does the name become “Unknown” (if so, should the service do that, localised?), or does null now mean something important in the context of the API (world offline?) and is in-fact valid in the future.

You can’t null-check everything, at every point in every app. Syntactic-soup is the result.

I’m not critising Anet for this, mistakes happen and lessons are learnt.