Guild Wars 2

I use the Charrzooka; it’s almost ludicrous size pleases me (though I certainly wouldn’t be sad if they shortened it a bit so that I could hold it and not have it clip through the floor).

Note how the OP specifically says “this is not a recruitment post”. I wouldn’t mind fresh blood that we can help get trained and situated, but that’s not the goal. The goal is to rally who we have and let the other servers know that we’re not a sinking ship. Part of the way the OP is presented is that “this is what happened to us, and while it sucks, we need to stick together now more than ever”. Losing WvW players is bad no matter how you slice it, and there isn’t a shred of desperate recruitment happening in the OP. If the specific wording bothers you, well, okay, I apologize.

That sounds like a much more enjoyable event, truly. Thanks for the sneak peak, Rob!

As that is thus directed at me, then I must say no, I’m not trying to complain at all. I’m trying to pull people together in these last days before server transfers become paid. I want our community to maintain what we have, and I want the other WvW servers to know that we cherish what we have and will fight ferociously to stay in the upper tiers. There isn’t a single complaint in the OP, there are only comments regarding the reality of where we’re at and what we can yet do if we keep together. We are smaller than we once were, and we have lost people; these are facts that we must deal with, not complaints, and I want us all to be there together in dealing with it.

Too Frisky.9165:

This all being said I have no idea what you’re getting at with this post. Are you trying to rally around a complaint?

I’m not sure which post this is directed at; are you talking to me (OP) or Porky?

Yes, so is the rest of [KT].

hoschi.8693:

i’ll PM you, that’s probably the best option

I appreciate that.

Notrub.6925:

Outside of WvW SBI is still the same server it always was. It is just now more fun for everyone concerned. If your on SBI and want something more than you are seeing in WvW you might want to join the community at http://www.stormbluffisle.com/index.php/forum/wvw and work with the other people trying to improve SBIs WvW performance. It will be more productive there than posting here.

While I agree that posting there is definitely better for the internal community, I think it also needs to be said to the general WvW populace that we’re not the sinking ship that every other thread calls us. I don’t want other servers viewing us as crashing and burning and forever the place to runaway from or shy away from. It’s important that it be communicated to everyone. Regardless, count on further input being said at the appropriate website as well.

Otherwise, I agree with the sentiment of the rest of your post. Outside of WvW, nothing has changed. I only wrote the OP in the context of WvW, however, so hopefully my understanding of that goes without saying. I certainly hope my OP didn’t come off as blaming any of the guilds that left for where we are; I understand their logic, and wish them well in their travels. That said, numbers of skilled WvW players factor into WvW success a great deal, so there is, regardless, a direct correlation (and, indeed, causation) between players leaving the server and our inability to field the players necessary to win in PPT and weekly.

I understand that it’s to stay in the competitive game or, in some cases, to start a new competitive regime on a lower server; why else would a WvW server leave? I’d be happy to amend the post if you want to provide more details.

I want to tell you a story about our server, where it’s at right now, where we want to go, and how we plan to do it.

First of all, yes, this paid transfer situation couldn’t have come at a worse time for our server. Just as some other servers hit the jackpot and scored dozens upon dozens of new guilds, the opposite has been true of us. Starting with WM abandoning us a month or so ago, other guilds have been leaving, and we have been losing pretty hard and virtually every week since. Then the paid transfer announcement came, and countless of our remaining guilds saw us losing and jumped ship in order to be on other servers that would stay in the T1/T2 region. I don’t blame them for that, as much as it personally bothers me. Even countless of my personal friends have abandoned the server for others. Things have been looking grim for us, and we can scarcely field a major fighting zerg anymore. Entire BL maps go unmanned and EB has not had a queue in ages.

And yet, we still manage to get points, we have not been removed totally from the board, and the community is tighter than ever. Those who have stayed with us have expressed their loyalty to the server through thick and thin, and have made the experience of WvWing that much better. We have commanders that lead us in assaults against impossible odds, and, much to our enemy’s surprise, sometimes we win and wipe them entirely. Our numbers are not superior, not any longer, but we have a lot of good players and a lot of spirit, and we’re not going to give up.

This is not a recruitment post (though if anyone wants to join the underdog-of-the-year in WvW, that’d be awesome), instead it is a rallying post to those last few guilds on our server thinking about leaving for greener pastures. Please reconsider. We are not broken, and we are not failing; we are a product of the people who make us up. Every last one of us makes a difference, and even if you don’t WvW religiously but only casually, now you have the ability to make a real difference on our server. We have no major alliances, but we have fun, we can make a difference, and we are about as dedicated a lot as you can find. We still have skilled players and commanders who have learned and plied their skills in the top tiers of WvW combat, and we are still a fighting force in small-scale combat, we just need to consolidate what we have and pull together in these last days before paid transfers go live. Please, if you’re thinking of leaving our server, I implore you to have faith, be proactive, and be a part of our rebuilding efforts instead.

Thank you for reading, Godspeed, and hopefully I’ll see you on the battlefield.

Transmuting creates a new item with the same name, and thus transmuted precursors will not work for crafting legendaries. Changing sigil and soulbinding the precursor is fine, however.

They should, and probably will, eventually make Fractals like other dungeons in that you only need to be in the same zone, not same server, as your team, but that has not yet been confirmed. Point is that there is a solution to your problem coming in the next patch, and regardless of whether it is a good solution is irrelevant. It solves the issue, and if you refuse to use it, that’s on you.

You don’t need an overflow once guesting goes live. If no one in your group is in an overflow, the rest of the group can guest to the server of one of the players, join the same LA instance, and play Fractals together.

I’m still not going to take my chances, lest I be one of the 200 lucky few to be considered as delivering wanton and willful destruction to the economy.

I’m not a member of JQ, but I’ve got a lot of respect for them. We fought them for the longest of any server they’ve fought against, and I have a lot of good friends in a lot of the guilds listed in the OP that have proven themselves time and again as worthy adversaries and legitimate players. If I weren’t so loyal to SBI, despite our hard times, I’d probably have come and joined one of them. While it makes me sad to see so many once-SBI guilds on that list, I am glad that they’re in a place where they can feel competitive and like they’re constantly on the cutting edge of competitive WvW. That said, I think JQ is great, and I hope that they stay T1 for a very, very long time to come.

Oh sure, I’ll just log in and try to get my server togeth—Oh wait, last night when I went on SoR BL the only two people from my server on were from my guild! We have so much rebuilding to do after this mass exodus of people…

Agreed. It looks hideous as it stands.

EnRohbi.2187:

Would you please quote the rude or insulting sentences, you are surely misinterpreting my tone. Perhaps you just have a victim mentality where you take offense from everything?

I bolded an example in your most recent post. Insinuating that I have a victim mentality is rather rude. Please also be mindful that it doesn’t take a direct insult to be rude. There are other such cases pockmarked in your other posts, though I am not about to quote them all. You also make the assumption that I’m offended, or that I actually care at all. I am only posting in response to you at all to dignify you, and in the hope that maybe you actually don’t understand why you were being rude, so that you might choose words more appropriately in the future. The internet lacks vocal tone that is present in normal conversation, thus saying the exact same thing can carry different meaning entirely online. It’s important to be cognizant of that if you wish to carry out civilized and meaningful discourse online. Hopefully this has helped.

EnRohbi.2187:

The fact that mass logging off WILL make a server go down to High instead of Full (The very reason this thread exists means it obviously works), means that THAT system is also not working as intended.

Considering the millions of accounts and hundreds of thousands of players logged on at any given time, any evidence coming from a player would fall under the banner of ‘correlation does not prove causation’. There is simply no way for you to make this claim with any measure of veracity.

As a side note, your rudeness is unnecessary.

EnRohbi.2187:

They have many, many systems in this game that don’t work the way they intended it to work.

That is an example of the logical fallacy of division; because the game contains systems that do not work does not inherently mean that any arbitrary system within the game does not work.

This is all so wrong. ANet has confirmed repeatedly (check many pages back in the developer tracker) that server populations are not determined by how many people are online, but by how many accounts are linked to a server. The only way for a server to drop from “Full” to “High” is if people from that server transfer to another server, freeing up their spot for someone else.

When I didn’t know what unique meant, I typed this in-game chat (without the quotes): “/wiki Unique” It answered my questions and I didn’t make the same mistake you did. Every game has its own terminology and shorthand, and while there is some need for the game developers to explain it, it has always been important for the user to be cognizant of these things before making irreversible decisions. For me, the responsibility of being aware is on you, and while your plight is unfortunate, the number one person to blame is yourself.

As an aside, noother.2190 is correct. The (Infused) and uninfused variants count as separate items and can be equipped together.

They won’t. You’re offering a service and they refuse to pay, so there is no foul. If they are joining you based on your LFG advertisement, then they know the conditions of your group. That is not bannable, and the users above purporting that it is are simply spreading fallacies. The only time it is against the rules to kick someone from your group is in the case of griefing or scamming, where you scam a user out of money or inflict grief upon another. Honestly, the person trying to leech the run for free is more in the wrong there because they are trying to get a free run and are wasting your time!

Robert Hrouda.1327:

The safety net for this incident broke, and it will be fixed this next patch. If a boss can’t attack you back due to terrain issues, he/she/it will go invulnerable and reset like before.

That is excellent news, Rob.

I will say for the future, however, that I think it would make for a much more interesting encounter if the Spider Queen had a ranged attack that she only used in situations where she cannot reach you to melee. This would allow players to use these terrain advantages assuming they could handle the ranged weaponry the boss could then hurl. This would give players multiple ways to handle the boss, and allow them to achieve goals in unique and different ways. That sort of mechanic (and indeed the mechanic of using terrain as an advantage) is something that you should nurture in encounters when you go back through them to make them more exciting. Thanks for the updates either way, as always.

As much as I want exploits fixed, please don’t prevent us from getting on those pillars! Just make the spider queen reset if the only person attacking her is on them! They are a wonderful safe place to fight the little spiders that shoot projectiles, and make me feel like my extremely capable jumping skills are actually useful for something.

HoukaKetsueki.6924:

Uh, how about the Fractal disconnect fix? No news about it yet? Hope it’s in the upcoming patch.

It is, and has been confirmed repeatedly. Check the dev tracker.

Errant Venture.9371:

ColinJohanson.2394:

(Please note, the ascended gear purchased for laurels will not have agony resistance built in, since that mechanic is currently unique to progression in the fractal dungeons. They are however statistically the same as any other ascended gear.)

Will we be able to upgrade the amulets to have an inherent agony resistance in a similar manner to rings/backpieces?

This is a question I’d like to see answered as well, please! If so, please God let it not use ectos.

I remember you guys taking LG last night. As nice as it is for everyone to make fun of SBI for this, let me note that the fun thing was standing by and letting this happen. I remember map chat at that moment when we were taking our SBI garrison back and we saw you two in the tower.

Random #1: “There are two thieves taking LG! Stop them!” (You hadnt gotten to Lord’s room at this point)
Commander: “Nah, we lose our keep every other ten minutes, let’s take it first.”
Random #2: “This is actually pretty amusing.” (Talking about the two Thieves in QL)
Random #3: “I could run in and screw with them, but I think I’ll stand here and watch instead of interfering.”
Me: “We’ll just take it back after they take it, let them have some fun.” (Me standing at the gate of LG watching you guys)

When you’re as far behind in points as we are, and have something like 20 people in any given map at a time, you don’t mind this sort of thing as much. Looks like you guys had some fun, so good on you.

I’m more curious how we get “Ascended Amulet (Infused)” than “Ascended Amulet”. Will it cost like 500 of these silly Laurels? Will we be able to get them via Fractals? I really don’t want to have to farm a daily achievement thing every day for 2 months to get an amulet.

Psybunny.8906:

Would be kinda funny, if they kicked the seller instead.

Then they’d all get kicked from the dungeon, due to the seller being the instance owner. Good job.

I just want to chime in that this is totally legitimate. It existed for years in GW1, was totally fair game, and was a legitimate way to earn money if you were really good at certain high-difficulty / high-time-investment content that others were willing to pay for. This is no different. You might not think it’s worth it, but if someone else does, that’s all that matters. If someone is willing to pay for it, then it’s worth it to sell it at that price. If you’re worried about scamming, in GW1 (and here), it is very common to do half before and half after, so even if someone does get scammed, you only get scammed half as bad as you might have other been scammed.

If that is indeed the case, then still the better solution would be to make them previewable skin items like the Wintersday event items. You could right-click preview them, but then double-click to apply the skin to another item. I’d much rather forfeit the ability to wield-preview them than be forced to spend a Fine Transmutation Stone on them. It seems really cheap to me as it is.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

You should totally transmute these, we will not change them into ascended items.

You should totally give them actual stat bonuses so that we are not forced to transmute them to enjoy the skin with maximum exotic item stats.

It will be fixed in ten (10) days as part of the January 28th update.

It should really be an AOE fear centered on yourself for 2 seconds, and they should outright replace our downed 3 because it’s abysmal.

Man, we’re losing people left and right. I live in the EST timezone and during my 6PM-10PM period SBI is outmanned in every single map, and when I join WvW we’ve lost our garrison in EB and SoR is camping our spawn. We have like one commander that I still recognize from the days of old when we were doing well, and our zerg consists of a whopping 12-16 players. It’s so depressing. I’m not going to bail on my server because I’m genuinely loyal to SBI and always have been, but what do we have to do to get our numbers anywhere remotely meaningful? At this rate, we’re going to be crashing to T7-T8 in no time flat, especially given that free transfers ending will basically be sealing our fate.

It’s easy to say “Keep your chin up”, but from having been T1 so long you get used to a certain quality of combat, and now we just don’t even come remotely close to that. This is about as bad as a fall from grace can get. Good plays all around TC and SoR. We just don’t deserve to be in this tier, and sorry to be wasting your time.

I’ll be honest; I’m a dungeon master and I don’t display the title because I think my GW1 title is more prestigious. I also disagree with the generalization that most Dungeon Masters suck. Being a DM doesn’t have any bearing at all on one’s skills in FotM, as FotM isn’t required for it, so judging a FotM player who is showing DM by their skill in FotM is rather nonsensical. (That was quite a tongue twisting sentence!)

When I was a noob, I joined experienced groups, pretended I was experienced, mimicked what the other players did, and had no problem passing off as a pro. In time, I learned that their strategies were mostly inefficient, and how to greatly improve upon them. If you’re desperate for a group, beggars can’t be choosers, but I can’t find any reason to be that desperate for a group. Just wait 5 minutes and look again if it bugs you that much.

Guardians are important for more than just their reflect/absorbs. In high level fractals, their reflect/absorbs are indeed critical, but more so than just that is the importance of their virtues, their high survivability, frequent and easy access to Aegis, frequent and easy access to Stability, and so forth. All of these things contribute to a class that is almost perfectly suited to perform in the Fractals environment at high levels. I have beaten level 40+ Fractals without a Guardian, but it requires that everyone in the group be able to make up the slack. This is a tough thing to safely assume of everyone when you are pugging. Indeed, when I take my guild, I don’t care what classes they bring. For pugs, I’d much prefer the safety net of even a decent Guardian to make the whole ordeal less stressful. That’s why I look for a Guardian.

That said, if a player whispers me, tells me their class, and then proceeds to prove to me that they have the brainpower exceeding that of a small rodent (basically by being cool, etc) then I’ll usually ask the team if it’s okay, and then invite them anyway.

I’ll be honest, security questions are used in countless systems for just this reason: security of the user while simultaneously being convenient for the user. Having to contact support in a case like this is surprising, and having security questions would alleviate that issue.

Now that I think about it, security questions would help alleviate a lot of the issues here, and would be a good thing to have in general for account security. Maybe have an option for an account that forces you to input a security question to log in, acting as a redundant deterrent to hackers similar to how you needed a character name to log into an account in GW1. Even if you found out the email/password combination, you’d somehow have to read their mind and know their security question answers to get in.

You can change the sigil and it still counts as a precursor. You cannot transmute it, however. I prefer Darx’s solution in either case.

It’s definitely not the Warrior’s issue. This player dodges like a boss, and I am confident that an Elementalist, for example, could also solo this path given a talented enough player.

I understand where Rob’s coming from. You put a lot of effort designing content for a full party, and then find someone comes along and beasts your whole system by soloing everything. It’s both impressive and in a way disappointing.

Kaineng’s going to win hands down. WM used to be on my server, and I’ve seen them work; they’re a step above the rest. As far as I can tell, they will pretty much firewash the whole tier and probably crusade along with others in their alliance all the way back up to T1. I am, personally, not expecting much of a fight here.

This is true for every asuran armor, yes.

Bring a Mesmer, set up a portal, jump halfway, use Blink to get to the other side, set up the other end of the portal. Done in less than a minute.

You can play with your friends. You have 12 days to move to the same region, and then you can play with them as much as you want. ANet is being very generous by having let us have free transfers for so long, the burden is on you now to coordinate with your friends so that you can play with them, not ANet.

Yes, you can do all of those things.

Liraz.8062:

The next line says that there are certain restrictions, such as not being able to participate in WvW. Cross-region restrictions were never listed, which one would expect it to be if it were restricted.

That would have been a prime, responsible time for them to disclose that information, so that cross-region guilds and communities could plan accordingly. I am disappointed that they chose to obscure this information instead.

This is a fair point, however, you make a proverbial leap of understanding by claiming that they obscured the information at all. It is far more likely that they didn’t realize such a restriction at that point (or thought they could overcome it and didn’t want to say one thing which would later be incorrect). Either way, 12 days is ample time to prepare as a community with our friends. It is not like the patch comes out tonight and we are all out of luck.

You forget one major thing about GW1: All content was instanced. That’s not the case with GW2, where there are any hundreds of thousands more things to keep track of, handle, and so on. From an engineering perspective, it is a far more daunting task to handle GW2 than GW1. In GW1, they could have all servers on a single data center because all content was instanced, and the only interactions you ever had with people outside of your party was in controlled districts. The districts being split into ‘regions’ was merely a formality for those of similar languages to congregate together, rather than throwing all languages into one place.

‘World’ is what we choose to be on, with the data center being the server within which the world we choose resides upon. The tech, despite being clearly improved since GW1’s days by being able to handle GW2 at all, just isn’t at the point where merging two data-centers is a feasible task. Yes, they can move you between data-centers, as is shown by changing worlds, but the point with guesting is that they don’t change your world, they simply allow you to play on other worlds within your data-center, AKA region. This makes perfect technical sense, and while I am no ANet employee and cannot speak to their specific situation, it makes sense to me given my industrial experience working with these sorts of things.

I agree, it sucks, I can’t play with my European pals, but this is something I anticipated back when guesting was first announced at all, and planned for. They are even giving you 12 days before this whole ordeal goes down to get your affairs in order. The server transfers are still free until guesting goes in, and the server caps have been raised; there’s really no reason to fret. Now you know what’s up, and now you can make it work with your friends.

Except that would cripple WvW entirely.

You still have 12 days to move to an NA server (or have your friends move to an EU server) to prevent any issues.

Because GW1 had 99% of its content instanced and could easily support a single data center for all players in towns, whereas it’s totally different in GW2 with very little content being instanced.