Guild Wars 2

Generally, I don’t trust Anise. I’m willing to believe that she puts the Queen’s welfare above everything else, but ever since she pointedly left Logan out of planning the Queen’s protection while planning her jubilee celebration, I’ve wondered if she might be too paranoid to be dependable, at least for everyone who isn’t the Queen. It’s one thing to avoid leaks, but it’s another to keep relevant, proven people (Logan, the captain of the Seraph in Divinity’s Reach) in the dark. She’s good at what she does, sure, but one person can only be so good.

As for her age, I don’t think it’s anything outlandish, if possibly older than she appears. I’ve heard suggestions that she’s Livia from GW1, but I’m skeptical, mostly because the switch from powerful necromancer to powerful mesmer seems very clumsy as a narrative. It seems unlike that she’d be a focused necromancer up for ~180 years, until her last appearance in 1256AE, and then spend the next ~60 years (Jennah’s coronation was in 1316AE) learning mesmer magic and relying on that instead.

(It does fit her high position within the Shining Blade, though.)

I figure it was really Caithe who stole the egg, though. Caithe’s been on my watchlist since it became clear she wasn’t being upfront with us during the Aetherpath, and there’s little good reason for Anise to disguise herself or Canach as Caithe to steal the egg, since they’d either have to kill/capture Caithe herself, or risk her popping up again.

Hamfast.8719:

Zhaitan is really and truly dead. Where do you think all that Zhaitaffy comes from? Someday even that will be no more, and we will say “Zhaionara”.

/groans

That was physically painful.

It’s a little late if you’ve already opened them, but I opened a couple, thought about it, and quit opening toolboxes as I got them, since they stack before you open them.

I expect to be harvesting snowflakes for free well into August. \o/

They’re good for alts, too, since you only have to be level 15 to use them. No more chucking old copper tools because I’ve leveled out of the area!

Donari.5237:

In early days of the game people asked about the point of the junk loot, and the answer was that in testing players were far less pleased by mobs that just dropped a few copper than by mobs that dropped an item, possibly amusingly named, that could then be turned into copper. It didn’t feel like they were getting enough loot if it came directly as coin.

This, I can absolutely believe. Junk items can be a hassle, but it wouldn’t be the first time players (myself included) were ultimately happier with things that seemed worse. It’s the kind of thing that only becomes apparent with testing and metrics (like a survey question: “Do you feel like you’re getting a good amount of rewards?”) because the answer is so unintuitive.

I love that little town and the castle next to it. It has no bearing on the rest of the world or the larger story, but it does a good job of telling a story in/with its environment, and making the world itself feel big and alive.

I don’t want every mystery of Tyria solved. :D

I think outright banning is the way to go. Funny though ironic punishments can be (See: Game Dev Tycoon) it doesn’t seem worth the trouble here. Sorting people through a wide range of ironic punishments would be a hassle, and maintaining a “cheaters only” server, separate from the main server’s trading post, chat, etc., would be a big waste of resources I’d rather see spent on non-cheating players.

When it comes to dealing with hacks, which affect other players in an MMO, I’d rather Anet just stay serious without trying to get too cute about it.

I’m surprised by the way some people seem to be interpreting what the OP wrote. He’s not asking for strictly more valuable loot, just loot that wastes less time for no readily apparent reason.

I have mixed feelings about junk items. On one hand, they can be somewhat interesting and satisfying to clear out with the “sell junk” button. On the other hand, it would be way less of a hassle just to give us the equivalent copper. Unless I’m overlooking some niche case, there’s absolutely no alternative use for junk other than to convert it directly to copper.

Would anyone actually prefer dealing with junk items to simply receiving the copper directly?

Obviously, it’s not a huge burden or something that needs to change ASAP, but small quality-of-life changes usually aren’t. It would still be nice, just the same.

(There is an achievement for collecting junk drops, so they shouldn’t be removed entirely, but I’m sure they could be used more sparingly or thoughtfully than they are now.)

Jillis.9720:

and getting banned isnt going to stop them
they are hackers
so they need a fine like a speeding ticket

There’s really no mechanism for issuing a a “hacking ticket.” I mean, maybe Anet could sue for breach of contract somehow, for breaking the user agreement, but user agreements typically aren’t solid contracts, they’d have a terrible trouble proving significant damages, the legal costs would be enormous, and it would generate tons of bad press.

There are laws for criminal hacking and computer fraud, but those are unlikely to apply in many cases here, and would be prohibitively expensive to investigate and enforce. The worst Anet can do in most cases is to terminate an account and ask you to stay out, because anything else is either prohibitively expensive or legally unenforceable.*

*I am not a lawyer.

You’re unlikely to get an official answer, because they don’t want to get into approving/denying any number of third-party applications, but I think the general rule is that if it gives you an in-game advantage, you shouldn’t use it.

Generally, I personally wouldn’t call extra sharpness and such a meaningful advantage.

They’ve never mentioned doing anything with secondary monitors, as far as I’m aware.

I usually use my second monitor for Wiki, GW2crafts, a world boss timer, or other websites, so I’m not sure I’d use an “expanded view” if one was implemented.

It probably just fell through the cracks when the system changed around it, like PvP armors (like Tribal) which aren’t obtainable anymore. (At the moment.)

It might be a good idea to dig up a list of weapons that are in this situation, so they can see that it’s a problem and consider ways to fix it.

Best fix might be just to create new weapons with the same skins, since that’ll leave the originals unaffected, and it’s not like there’s an economy to disrupt centered around these untradeable weapons.

If you want it, I’d say get it now to be safe. Plus, you’ll be able to enjoy it a full year earlier, and throughout the year.

But, it’s returned consistently so far, so I’m expecting it to return next year as well, since they didn’t make any kind of “We’re retiring the old costume! Get it while it’s here!” sort of announcement, which would be the smart marketing pitch.

Guilty as charged.

Edit: To be be clear, I’m more opposed to the rhetoric involved and the glossing over of the point raised by Andred, that it’s the holiday season and the relevant people might be occupied. It sounds like something is wrong with the Annihilator, but it doesn’t help to suggest the devs see this problem and actively want players to have a bad time. That’s nonsense.

See an enemy pulling back with a club or hammer? Block/dodge/interrupt. See a mob aiming a ranged weapon down it’s sights, or an energy weapon charging, or a projectile flying toward you? Block/dodge/interrupt. See the floor light up with a red/orange glow? Block/dodge.

I never played WoW, so I’m a little unclear what you’re asking for, but I kinda like that I learn to avoid most enemy attacks through experience, by watching them and learning from them or similar enemies. You get the hang of it eventually.

Bellizare.5816:

On the other hand I don’t play her very much anymore. I wish I could say why, but after playing the other professions it just feels a little slow.

I’ve always thought my guardian felt agonizingly slow as well, although I attribute a lot of that to being a norn. I feel like half the reason I run staff is for the Swiftness.

My survivability seems to be pretty good as a guardian, but it gets tedious sometimes, compared to other classes. (I’m also not a particularly good guardian, because I’m not interested enough in it. Anyone have a guardian setup that feels active and exciting?)

Personally, I’ve been collecting them to build a suit of “drop armor” for jumping puzzles. I don’t know yet how much I’ll actually use it, but if this lets me jump from newfound heights like a madman and survive, I figure there’s something fun there.

I can’t see them being broadly useful, but they’re something different, anyway, and that appeals to me.

Colly.4073:

Andred.1087:

Colly.4073:

vanRijn.6348:

ArenaNet, help plz?

Anet couldn’t give a monkeys butt.

Yeah….. guess they’re a little occupied being on vacation for the holidays?

They have had several threads about this since the patch went live and chose to ignore them.

But then they want us to grind like mindless idiots until they can be kitten d with the new patch on 13th January, It’s a kittenty way to go about it.

Wait wait, there have been several threads? CANCEL CHRISTMAS, DEVS, YOU HAVE A BUG TO FIX.

I’m sympathetic to the frustration of the boss not spawning, and I don’t know what Anet’s holiday hours are like, but they obviously don’t want you “grinding like mindless idiots” if there’s a problem. It’s silly statements like that which make it hard to take problems seriously.

Generally, I’d say “play both, and see which you enjoy more.”

Warrior is actually the only class I haven’t played, but I’ve always heard pretty positive things about it. I have a guardian, but I’ve never really been able to get into it like some other classes, personally.

Are you trying to figure out which is stronger in the current meta? It might help to identify which types of content you enjoy. (Open world, dungeons, WvW, PvP, etc.)

Oh, hey, that is pretty cool. Generally, if I’m in the area, I keep the currency on me, because I’m actively collecting more of it, but it’s still nice quality of life improvement just the same.

Now if only some of these currencies could end up in the account wallet… ;P

Hair like that is problematic. On one hand, I don’t like when it clips through things like armor. On the other hand, I don’t like it when the hair gets hidden entirely because I’ve put on a hat.

I don’t think it’s practical to design gear to avoid some of the longer / more voluminous hairstyles, even just the more common ones. It’s unfortunate, but some gear pieces I just have to look at a given character’s head and say “Nope, that’s not going to work.”

Other than making a generic “tied back” alternate hairstyle to shorten long hair (rather than making a character go bald,) I’m not sure what alternative fix to this problem there is.

Who is their right mind is going to enter the Black Citadel and stir up trouble?

The Black Citadel has its defense: A whole city of charr. The gate guards are a formality.

Arikyali.5804:

Maybe because it’s a new item? Everything else is a returning item from the time the game came out. I don’t remember what the gem = gold ratio was back then, but it’s probably the same ‘ease’ (or difficulty) as getting 400 gems now.

Wouldn’t basing the pricing around the gold→gem exchange like that actually discourage buying the item with real money, where it still represents a plainly higher price, unrelated to changes in the in-game gold supply?

Lishtenbird’s suggestion that a scarf will cost 800 gems two years from now is extremely unlikely, because the real money to gems ratio seems unlikely to change.

I would assume they have at least some sort of pricing model in place, to figure out how to price this stuff, but it’s probably just an expensive piece, not one that’s been “adjusted for in-game ease of obtainment.”

Something to keep in mind: When the Festive Hat first appeared, it was a Town Clothes item, which couldn’t be used in combat. A more direct comparison to the scarf might be the Toxic Mantle Skin, which was available in November of 2013 for 400 gems.

I don’t know about future plans, but there is no such option, and I’ve never heard mention of plans to add it. (Although, I’ve seldom heard it requested, either.)

Whether or not the alternate version of the game that you’re suggesting would be great, having an alternate version would be a big problem. They’d end up dividing their playerbase into two wildly different games. There might be some population bump if they add a bunch of new features as you’re suggesting, but it would still be divided over two incompatible worlds, and that’s a problem for an MMO.

Not to mention the resources question. I don’t think there are the resources available that would be needed to fork the game this way and sustain development on both versions. They’d have to dramatically scale back the Living World releases in the original version to develop and maintain the alternate version, and then each version is going to get fewer updates than the current version to keep them both progressing.

If they had the resources to add housing and GvG, they’d do so in the main game. “Fork the game” isn’t a practical, or even useful, solution to several of the things suggested.

There are some Bandit Crest items which have to be unlocked, either by completing the storyline or by completing other achievements. That includes the Carapace Shoulder/Glove/Boot/Legging Boxes.

As for the Dragonite Ore, you are level 80, right? That’s the main reason I could guess for it not dropping.

Obviously, things could change, because story writing, because magic, but I think it’s safe to say Zhaitan is dead.

In-world, it would make very little sense for us to go to war on the scale that we do, take Zhaitan down, and then remove his tail without being as certain as we can be that it’s quite dead. Even if noxious fumes keep individual soldiers from carving off their own personal trophies / avenging their every lost loved one on the corpse, I’d be surprised if we didn’t carpet bomb the body or blast it from above with lasers. It would just be silly for us to shoot Zhaitan down, see that he doesn’t get back up right away, and then fly back to Fort Trinity to celebrate.

It’s possible Zhaitan could live on in some fragment, like transferring some of its essence into a servant’s body or something, because ~magic~, but it only makes sense for the body to be dead. We know Zhaitan is a powerful necro, so I’d expect the Priory at least to disassemble the body as much as possible, or to keep an eye on it in case it starts moving again.

From an outside-the-game, narrative standpoint, I sure hope Zhaitan is dead, because we’re more than two years into the game and we’re only just approaching our second dragon, out of six. I don’t know if we’ll ever actually slay all of the Elder Dragons, and we don’t have to necessarily slay them one-at-a-time, but it seems awkward to start doubling back instead of moving forward.

I think it’s interesting to look at this thread and another one posted today (“Will Season 1 Re-release?”) alongside each other, since at their heart they’re asking for two completely different, but valid things. One wants big, permanent changes, while the other wants events that can be relived for those who missed them.

In a way, you can see the two perspectives paralleled by Season 1 and Season 2 of the Living Story. (Thus far, anyway.)

Wanderer.3248:

I wonder how long this would take to pay off, compared with buying gems with the cash you would have spent on the second copy of the game, and then converting gems to gold.

Let’s say you get the game for $25. It’s been on sale for less, and more, so let’s just pick that as an arbitrary “good, but not best-ever deal” on the game. I’m just going to ignore taxes.

1 gold currently costs 12 cents.

$25 = 2,500¢

2,500¢ x (1g / 12¢) = 208g33s33cc

So, you need to make ~209g to make back the money spent on the game. End-of-dungeon rewards vary by dungeon, but most are 1.5g, so…

209g / (1.5g/run) = 139.33runs.

You’d have to run about 140 dungeons this way to make your money back. More if you factor in taxes, less if you pay less for the game or do Aetherpath/Arah. You can factor in other considerations, like login bonuses, faster ascended crafting, etc., but this can give you some frame of reference as far as a dungeon focus goes.

It’s a bit like asking why police don’t ticket everyone who breaks the speed limit: They can’t, as a practical matter. Anet could hire someone to comb through lists of player names all day, flagging trademark violations, and they’d still miss a bunch, simply from human error or not being familiar with the trademark being violated.

While it’s certainly possible that a GM might let me slide with a character named “Harry Potter” if I’m a personal friend of theirs…is that a situation people think is common? It seems more likely to me that they focus their enforcement efforts on names that are offensive, reported, or otherwise particularly problematic. Naming policy violations are always going to slip through, and they can’t catch them all.

I mean, corrupt enforcement of the naming policy is certainly possible, but I can’t say I’m worried that it’s an actual problem.

Somehow, I think the “mispellings and alternative spellings” rule is probably aimed more at lewd or offensive names, which make a pretty big part of the list.

Naming policy is a tricky business, even just looking at trademark violations. Obviously, they can’t automatically block every third-party trademark, so they write policy that lets them deal with it as-needed. It might seem arbitrary or inconsistent, but what system for dealing with it wouldn’t feel that way?

(Note: I don’t have any experience dealing with name changes, but it seems a strange place to complain about Anet being unfair. I mean, it’s not a rule they can apply universally, but it seems like a weird rule to play favorites with, which seems to be warduke’s accusation.)

I don’t know what anyone ever called it “impossible,” and it probably isn’t, but it might be impractical:

Gaile Gray.6029:

The problem is deep within the technology behind the forum structure itself. Yes, we had a search engine in the beginning, but it was broken by our forum contractor in the course of working on other things. We no longer have a relationship with that contractor or his company, and someone else is not able to step into the system and fix the search engine because (1) our programmers are tasked with other essential work, (2) the forums run on a web framework with which most of our programmers are not familiar and (3) we’re investigating other options for forums and it would not be prudent to pour money into hiring someone to fix this as a short-term solution.

My team agrees that it would be great to share the system that is outlined in the OP, and we’re going to figure out a way to do that. It won’t be as simple as “plumbing” the current search window to go to Google — each of us still will need to input the search manually, but it’s better than the current “poke and prod” to find a particular post!

Evidently they did hire a programmer. And that programmer broke the search. Aaaand they no longer work with that programmer. They could pull person(s) from other projects to figure it out and work on it, but then there’s the question of how much good money to throw after bad if they’re considering a change in software anyway.

I think it’s ridiculous that the forum search has been in this state for so long, but I’m sympathetic to the problem. It should have been fixed sooner, but maybe the behind-the-scenes situation wasn’t settled until it was too late to fix it without looming questions about the rest of the forum software hanging over the investment to fix it.

If they’re going to switch forum software, though, the sooner the better. These forums look nice, but I’ve never been too crazy about how they actually function.

It’s not against the ToS, although I’d like to see the conversation in which you explain the scenario to your party members. Unless they’re friends or guild members who don’t mind giving you a little boost, I don’t see what incentive they have for playing a person short for your benefit.

Not every party needs five people to tackle a dungeon, but taking on dead weight to line someone else’s pockets? Not a very appealing offer.

And this happens half the time that you run down the candy cane slope?

I’ve heard of the slope bug, and obviously it’s a problem that needs fixing, but that’s never happened to me, ever. I wonder what causes it. o_o

…..

Yikes.

Obsidian Shards are good for crafting Legendary weapons, Ascended equipment, and the Exotic shield “Cragstone.” If you’re not trying to create any of those, they’re worthless to you. If you are trying to create those, they’re worth 2100 karma, 15 fractal relics, 1 laurel, etc., depending on what currency you’d prefer to buy them in.

Since you can estimate the coin value for karma, relics, etc. if you know how to convert those into coin (buy material bag, sell materials, for example,) you can estimate a rough coin value for shards…but only if you, personally, have a use for shards. You can’t sell them to other players, so it only matters if you can use them.

You could use obsidian shards to craft Cragstone or a Legendary, and then sell that, but the other components involved (250 Onyx Lodestones for Cragstone, or a precursor and more for the Legendary) are so much more expensive than the shards that the shards are practically a negligible consideration if you’re hoping to turn a profit on those items.

So, yeah. Good if you’re making Ascended or Legendary gear, or Cragstone, but no significant value otherwise.

If you have a ton of them you don’t want, like Sube Dai, just delete them 250 at a time. You can deposit up to 250 in your bank, then just clear them out whenever your bank is full. (I don’t PvP, but hopefully you’re not getting thousands of them, or that would still be a hassle.)

Edit: I forget that they added some recipes for Bloodstone Brick, which is another use for Obsidian Shards. Once again, though, the items you make are either account-bound or have bigger barriers than Obsidian Shards in selling them for a profit.

They’d like to, obviously, but even though they have assets, designs, and whatnot from the original releases, it’s still a big (read: expensive) undertaking to convert all that into a replayable form. Some parts were already instanced (fighting Canach, investigating the Captain’s Council assassination) but what do you do with open world parts, like the toxic Kessex or the evacuation of Lion’s Arch? I suppose you could instance them, but then you’re splitting the playerbase over the regular world, new releases, and every old release simultaneously. Some of those open world events (Marionette) require a critical mass of players to work.

There are possible solutions, like having “historical instances” on a weekly timer, or recreating Marionette from the ground up as a 5-player encounter, but any solution is going to be pretty demanding in terms of resources. So the question becomes “Do we want to recreate Season 1? Or do we want to create new content?”

The answer is “both,” of course, but that might not be practical.

“One time only” events are much cooler in concept than they tend to be in practice. Lots of players have to miss out due to scheduling, latency can ruin it even for people who do attend (Lost Shores,) and if there are any other bugs/performance issues, there’s no option to patch it in and let people go again. (When I saw King Thorn burst out of the Lion Statue, his model didn’t render in the cinematic, so the statue exploded for no reason.)

There are finite resources to go around, so instead of investing heavily into something that’s very likely to go wrong (a one-time encounter,) it makes more sense for them to do repeatable instances (season 2 episodes,) or events on a repeatable cycle. (Silverwastes, Battle of Lion’s Arch, etc.)

I know people don’t always feel like they’re making a real impact on the world when they know events are on a loop, but it’s never really bothered me. As long as you keep moving, instead of staying in one area and actually doing the events over and over, I think it’s a good way to flesh out the world and allow you to have an impact as you’re exploring it.

I might never drive the bandits out of Queensdale, but I at least I can protect a farm from them while I’m passing by. From my character’s perspective, I’ve made a difference, even if I haven’t from the all-knowing, all-seeing perspective of a player who can tell when and where everything happens or will happen.

Did they ever wipe names in GW1?

While I could see a game doing this after a very, very long time in operation, GW2 isn’t nearly old enough to call for it, in my opinion. Yeah, it’s frustrating when your name ideas are already taken, but there are plenty of available names that aren’t taken, if you’re reasonably flexible. I’d rather I have to take a couple tries to get a name I like that’s available than to reset people’s names for inactivity, at least at this point in the game’s life cycle.

If what you want is less significant RNG, perhaps they should take Black Lion Keys out of the result table entirely, rather than guaranteeing them 25% of the time as you suggest. The rewards aren’t as good then, but at least you won’t get a Box of Fun while your buddy gets a Key.

If we assume that all results for the Chest of Black Lion Goods are equally likely (which isn’t a small thing to assume,) a person would, on average, get a key every ten chests. You basically get one chest a week (28/4,) so you can expect a Black Lion Key once every 10 weeks. (Again, assuming all CoBLC drops are equal.)

My point is, by guaranteeing one key a month, you’re more than doubling the expected drop rate. Taking the key out of the drop table entirely might be a little extreme, but casually doubling the drop rate isn’t something to gloss over, either.

While I don’t have nearly as many fragments as Dragonite Ore or Bloodstone Dust, the Star is still pretty exciting. I haven’t yet bitten the bullet on making Mawdrey, but this has me excited to see what they do with Dragonite Ore.

This has been brought up now and then basically since the game launched, and I still think it’s a good idea. Keeping it out of combat keeps things balanced, and while I can see some very, very small potential for exploits (boon-granting sigils, firing a projectile and then swapping before contact, etc.) these seems either solvable or negligible.

It’s not a HUGELY PRESSING CONCERN, but it would be a nice quality of life upgrade to be able to swap my staff for one-handed weapons now and then, without having to fish around in my bag to find where my other dagger ended up when I swap back to staff.

To be direct, I really dislike this idea. I don’t want to see real-world brands referenced in-game. (Other than the occasional reference to GW2 and Anet, for obvious reasons.)

I don’t demand that the game world be perfectly realistic, or completely immersive, but I want the exceptions to be for the sake of fun and fantasy, not product placement revenue. There’s really no amount of “opt-in required” that works for me, because those items and brands are going to spill out into my experience just the same, from people linking their brand items in chat to official marketing messages. Any volume low enough that I won’t mind it isn’t a volume that’s worth them running a tie-in campaign for.

Gnat.9405:

Dunkoro Donuts

Darn you—Don’t make me enjoy this idea.
+1

It’s interesting to consider the multiple threads going on in this one:

1a) That isn’t an accurate representation of a real hat that fits the aesthetic they were going for.
1b) That actually is an accurate representation of certain types of hats.
1c) Who cares if that hat actually exists, it’s a Halloween costume meant to evoke a certain vibe, whether or not it’s accurate.

Meanwhile,

2a) Is it politically correct to say “Asian hat?”
2b) I think it’s more from this part of Asia, while Cantha draws influence more from that part.
2c) Geeze, can’t people see something different and not call it racist? GET OVER IT.
2d) It’s not racist, even if it is a Halloween costume.
2e) Is it racist to dress up like another culture if you’re a specific character in that culture? Like, being an “Indian” isn’t cool, but being an exorcist or ninja is usually okay?
2f) Just because it’s Halloween doesn’t mean it’s okay to be racist!
2d) Wait, who called it racist?
2e) This was clearly designed for the Chinese market.
2f) I don’t think an iconic hat is racist.
2g) I don’t know, I just wasn’t sure if I should be uncomfortable or not.
2h) GUYS, CANTHA =/= ASIA
2i) WHO ARE WE SHOUTING AT AGAIN?

Meanwhile,

3) Hats are the best. <3

I liked the original Guild Wars a lot, but people sometimes see the story through rose-colored glasses, I think. I’m not going to go through it and pick out every little thing, but I’d say that GW2, on the whole, compares very favorably. I seem to remember Prophecies being one abrupt, semi-connected turn in the story after another, and I mostly remember Factions being…too short to really remember much about. (And, again, I enjoyed them. But enjoy them for what they are.)

Is GW2’s story a masterpiece of subtle, fully-realized characters? Not always, but it’s a decent story in an very well-realized world, especially if you explore, talk to NPCs, and occasionally listen to NPCs talk to each other. I find I enjoy it for what it does well, and it does a lot well.

Tolunart, you could apply that thinking to any aspect of the game, including art and programming, and use that answer any time someone has a feature request or suggestion. Just because they have experts doesn’t mean they have no use for feedback. Those experts need information to do their jobs, and forum feedback is part of that.

The Digital Deluxe Upgrade is in a bit of an unfortunate spot, because it usually doesn’t go on sale when the game does, even though the game is on sale in the official store. It’s not an end-of-the-world problem by any means, but it does seem like an oversight and a missed opportunity.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter who you think of as paying the tax—however the fees are presented, the end result is the same. If I list an item for 100G, and the buyer has to pay 115G to buy it (15% tax,) there’s no real difference from me listing the item for 115G, because I want 100G profit for it and there’s a 15% tax. They pay the same amount, and I get the same amount. I just have to think about it more, as the seller.

Personally, when I go real-world shopping, I’m irritated by the way prices are shown exclusive of sales tax almost all the time. It’s usually a small amount, but if I’m buying something larger, it’s not insignificant. ($15 on a $250 tech item, for example.) I occasionally wish, unrealistically, that prices would be presented to me including the total cost with taxes up front, so I could simplify the “what is it worth to me” consideration.

GW2’s system does that, by putting all the tax considerations on one party, and I prefer it that way. People might not love having to adjust their sales numbers for projected profit, but there’s no good reason to hassle both sides with it.

(Unlike the real world, where it’s just not as feasible as it is in-game, for many reasons.)

It’s a little strange. I’m looking forward to today’s update, but I don’t have anything specific to look forward to.

Um, yeah! I suppose. Judging from previous Season 2 episodes, I’m expecting a few story instances that are reasonably interesting, but with generally unremarkable rewards. Mawdrey / Mawdrey II was an interesting reward, but the process was complicated enough (and not explained in-game enough) and expensive enough that I still haven’t bothered with it, leaving my inventory full of things like the Cultivated Seed and Chaos Orb. Maybe it’s a satisfying reward if you go all the way through it, but when I was actually going through the story instances, my reaction was less “Yeah, reward!” and more “Seriously, another Important Junk?”

I don’t expect the same stream of back/helmet skins that Season 1 had, but I don’t feel particularly rewarded for Season 2 thus far. The story is fine, and that’s enough to keep me doing it, but I’m finding myself altogether less engaged than Season 1.

Still, I thought the final chapter of the previous half was great, so I’m looking forward to seeing where things go.

If you’re accustomed to clicking skills with a mouse, why not ease into it by switching to using 1, 2, 3…0 to activate skills?

That’s a really simple suggestion, but it might give you more of a feel for what you’re aiming for, rather than remapping all of your keys and then not being able to find what you need in a pinch.

I like the racial skills, and actually use some of them, but it’s not a concept I necessarily want to see extended to traits. (Or more skills, for that matter.)

It doesn’t affect PvP balance (since they’re PvE-only,) but that’s a downside, too, because it seems like a waste to develop new traits that can’t be used in PvP. That doesn’t seem to have ever ended in favor of overpowered PvE skills, however, since I rarely see them used.

If racial traits are very useful, then you have the problem of someone wanting to change their character’s race, and having to grind another level 80 character. Character-race-matters elements of the game (skills, cultural armor, storylines) are interesting, and they flesh out the world, but they have a so many trade-offs and problems that I don’t see more coming anytime soon.

Blueprints are still available, and at very affordable prices.