Guild Wars 2

@Mickey and Lagrangeify.

a) I genuinely did not understand what he said. I was sitting there thinking “What’s this work-time” then. I am really not trying to be facaetious about this.

b) It’s a forum on the internet.

c) People should be told if what they say can’t be understood by other people. Grammar Nazi-ism is relevant if people’s poor grammar renders themselves unintelligible, which was exactly the case here.

d) Potatoes.

muthax.4720:

Ronin.8095:

muthax.4720:

Ronin.8095:

muthax.4720:

I thought it was pretty clear myself

Ah right.

“My old lady has to work.” Is one sentence.

“Time to get into relax mode and play without wife aggro interference.” is another

If you say “my old lady has to work-time to get into relax mode and play without wife aggro interference.” without puntuating it and putting a random hyphen in there, it reads as one complete sentence of garbled nonsense.

Now I can understand it, it’s just nonsense.

yes it is and yest it could have done with a bit more commas… though he did use a ‘-’

and no, that’s not some weird smiley

People know what a “-” is.

It’s not punctuation either as used in the OP, it’s just a random hyphen. It makes the words work and time one word “work-time” which is what I read.

A hyphen is a hyphen and cannot be used in the same way as a comma, definitely not to break up a sentence.

If you’re takling about parenthesis sure, but that really doesn’t apply in that sentence at all. There’s nothing in it to be put in parentheses.

It’s two sentences. It should have been a period or a full stop.

LEARN ALL THE ENGLISH!

give him some slack, he was REALLY excited, I can understand him

Lol, you know I’m joking and just contributing to this thread like you as it’s one of those quirks of the internet.

I don’t care how people talk, but if it makes someone unintelligible, like it really did when I read it through, I think they should be told.

It’ll help them be understood in the future.

VIVA LA GRAMMAR THREAD!

wollie.9751:

I still don’t understand what work-time means, and why his wife has it.

Replace the hyphen with a full stop (or period if you’re American) and it now makes sense.

Ronin.8095:

muthax.4720:

Ronin.8095:

muthax.4720:

I thought it was pretty clear myself

Ah right.

“My old lady has to work.” Is one sentence.

“Time to get into relax mode and play without wife aggro interference.” is another

If you say “my old lady has to work-time to get into relax mode and play without wife aggro interference.” without puntuating it and putting a random hyphen in there, it reads as one complete sentence of garbled nonsense.

Now I can understand it, it’s just nonsense.

yes it is and yest it could have done with a bit more commas… though he did use a ‘-’

and no, that’s not some weird smiley

People know what a “-” is.

It’s not punctuation either as used in the OP, it’s just a random hyphen. It makes the words work and time one word “work-time” which is what I read.

A hyphen is a hyphen and cannot be used in the same way as a comma, definitely not to break up a sentence.

If you’re talking about parenthesis sure, but that really doesn’t apply in that sentence at all. There’s nothing in it to be put in parentheses.

It’s two sentences. It should have been a period or a full stop.

LEARN ALL THE ENGLISH!

muthax.4720:

Ronin.8095:

muthax.4720:

I thought it was pretty clear myself

Ah right.

“My old lady has to work.” Is one sentence.

“Time to get into relax mode and play without wife aggro interference.” is another

If you say “my old lady has to work-time to get into relax mode and play without wife aggro interference.” without puntuating it and putting a random hyphen in there, it reads as one complete sentence of garbled nonsense.

Now I can understand it, it’s just nonsense.

yes it is and yest it could have done with a bit more commas… though he did use a ‘-’

and no, that’s not some weird smiley

People know what a “-” is.

It’s not punctuation either as used in the OP, it’s just a random hyphen. It makes the words work and time one word “work-time” which is what I read.

A hyphen is a hyphen and cannot be used in the same way as a comma, definitely not to break up a sentence.

If you’re takling about parenthesis sure, but that really doesn’t apply in that sentence at all. There’s nothing in it to be put in parentheses.

It’s two sentences. It should have been a period or a full stop.

LEARN ALL THE ENGLISH!

Really not trying to be a grammar nazi, I genuinely read that as one sentence.

You know like when someone has something really exciting to say to you and they just say everything at once. That’s what I read!

muthax.4720:

I thought it was pretty clear myself

Ah right.

“My old lady has to work.” Is one sentence.

“Time to get into relax mode and play without wife aggro interference.” is another

If you say “my old lady has to work-time to get into relax mode and play without wife aggro interference.” without punctuating it and putting a random hyphen in there, it reads as one complete sentence of garbled nonsense.

Now I can understand it, it’s just nonsense. (Joke!)

I love the fact we’re all trying to decipher what the fudge he said. Why?

It could have been in German and I’d probably have understood it better.

And I don’t speak German.

Xericor.9103:

Only Anet know the answer to that.
However, we must consider why bots are there in the first place – they farm to sell to players, to earn real world money for themselves.

IF players dont buy – bots wont farm.

Well it’s obvious why bots are an inherent problem in all MMOs. You’re just stating what has been known for over a decade.

ANet can’t change people’s morality on spending real money with 3rd parties can they? I’d like to see them try.

What they are left with is trying to adjust the one thing they do have control over and they’ve really really messed it up.

There are better ways to stop them than a blanket measure which effects all players in all zones. GW1 didn’t even have this restrictive a feature.

All it has done is push the bots elsewhere, into the DEs and away from abusing areas or nodes and seeing as we have to be there too, as we’re not allowed to farm either, they really really get in our way.

They’ve exacerbated the problem and have not alleviated it in any way. It was a massive oversight on their part.

There’ll be a threshold for the number of reports required before someone from ANet even looks into it.

The majority of players are extremely apathetic when it comes to bots even if they hate their presence and the effect it has on them.

As a result a surprisingly small amount will report them.

Moreover, it really shouldn’t be our responsibility to have to play detective for ANet. It is their responsibility to keep on top of the problem and they aren’t.

So from my current perspective I’m being punished in more than one way with this game.

Here’s my most important point.

The botters know that DR exists. Why would you try to exploit a system that you know is adjusted against you. They are not that stupid.

Now, they’re karma farming, which will lead to a broken economy as karma is worth gold if you’re selling on items.

The way it affects us the players is two-fold.

1. We cannot farm where the botters aren’t now as the DR will move us on. I actually do need to farm for a legendary. If I’m going to accrue items at this rate it’s a pointless thing to even think about starting.

2. The DR has pushed bots into my DEs now and unless I’m playing a warrior or guardian and spinning around like a top with my sword. I can kiss loot goodbye. I get no reward for playing my role in the group.

I hate the PvE life in this game and especially Orr.

It’s so so broken.

In English when you get a moment, please.

You accused me of being something I am not and I will correct someone calling me a kid who is (probably) younger than me.

In nearly every online and real life experience I can think of, I’ve only ever been called kid by another real child or teen. They’re the only group of people who think that’s a normal thing to do, yet can’t see the abject stupidity in it.

It’s really crass and makes you look idiotic. Do it outside your front door with other people and see how well they take to it.

Listen I could tell you I have the right to criticize, but it’s going to be worthless isn’t it? You’re so sadly blinded.

All implementations they have put in are not working. They’re detrimental to the game and the evidence is pouring in and is numerous in content. Bots are increasing, real players are decreasing. The economy is screwed and DEs are bugged, imbalanced and unrewarding.

This is all after a month. That really is the amazing part. You even highlighted this for me in your own post. Thanks for that.

Anyway, you’re part troll I can see that now, I’ll leave you alone in future. Thanks for the heads up. I could have ended up wasting a lot of time on this and you, but I’ll save myself some dignity and self-worth and avoid you like the plague.

I am 33, I do work from home, it is relevant as if you insist on calling me a kid then I’m going to prove you otherwise and tell you to stop being a rude idiot for doing so. If you’re not going to listen, like you aren’t and as I expected then you’re a waste of my time and everybody else’s.

Carry on being blinkered, but your voice is clearly the one in the minority.

muthax.4720:

Ah how I didn’t miss all the whiney kids coming over totry to make this game like they want though their small blackmail attempts, whining and menacing, talking about dead MMOs (??).
You people never change. Please do feel to go somewhere else and gloat about the ‘death’ of GW2, like you do with every game you buy.
Unfortunately for you, this time (like many others) your tantrums are pointless.
If by dead MMO you mean without wowtards spazzing all day on teh forums, yeah let’s hope GW2 ‘dies’ soon

btw YOU are in no place to dictate what other players want to play either. Especially when these are the vast majority. Stop dreaming kid

I’m 33, I’ve been married for 7 years and have 3 children. Sorry, but how old are you exactly? If you’re not older than me (and even if you are) stop calling people kids. It’s crass and makes you look ingnorant, rude and uneducated.

I’m an internet entrepreneur and work from home and as such I have lots of time on my hands to invest in an MMO.

I don’t have tantrums, I provide for a family of 5 and they have the tantrums around me.

Your voice is drowned out by the others saying DR is a real problem right now. Ignore it if you must, but that doens’t mean it’s not a massive flaw in the game.

You seem not to understand what the word “gloat” means or you do know what it means and therefore aren’t applying it correctly at all.

I don’t want the game to fail. I’m not happy that this is the direction it is heading in because I want the game to succeed.

I’m not trying to boast about the fact or nor do I take any small modicum of pleasure in noticing that they way they are punishing everyone will have a very detrimental affect on the game.

If my true feelings were to take pleasure in the demise of a game then I’d be a pathetic person, but I’m not.

I’m allowed to criticize the game and should not have to withstand the tiring personal attacks that come after it.

I’m not a “wowtard” as you put it. I’ve never played the game and you can probably see I used to be an FF fan, which I’ve always considered as the thinking man’s MMO and much much more cerebral than all other titles with the exception of EVE.

I am not trying to dictate how other people play the game. That’s exactly what I am complaining about happening to me. Clever what you did there. Well not really, it’s easy to see you’re just turning the same argument around as you have no real answer.

I’ve already said I want it to be less punitive and restrictive if you choose to play in a way that ANet might not think is the best way of playing the game. I should never be forced to play the way that ANet think I should play the game. Which I am being right now.

The fact is, I get more entertainment having cultured and reasoned discussions on the forum right now, than I do from actually logging in.

There’s no reason I can’t login right now. I just don’t really want to as I’ll just be really disappointed when I do.

Sorry, but you’re wrong in just about everything you said.

If I didn’t care about the game’s future and what I can get out of it, after paying for the CE and PDF guide then I wouldn’t be here.

If I’m going to be called a kid for expressing my opinion and told I’m gloating over the perceived death of a game, then perhaps I should spend my time elsewhere.

Kids. Yeah right. You’re the one that needs to do a bit of growing up here and talk in a reasonable fashion.

vanAndesen.6728:

I was pleased to notice that there are now two new reporting options. “Gold Seller” and “Botting”.
Gold sellers are a pain and you should just do the following:
1. Report
2. Ignore
3. Continue with your gaming fun.

Bots are usually easy to discover.
If you come upon a naked player (naked as in only wearing underwear), who is laying dead and you raise the player. Then if the player right off the raise rushes to attack the nearest target, then take a few and watch the player die and raise the player again, if same happens. Rushing to attack, then you can be sure that it is a bot.

I for one am glad that the GW2 team is fighting these two problems. Bots are just for shaking your head at them, but gold sellers are annoying, mainly their mails.

Keep up the good work guys.

That’s a ridiculous thing to tell people to do.

It’s not my priority to work as a “bot detective” on ANet’s behalf. I spent money to have leisure time here, I’m not going to waste my in-game time putting all the bots I come across through your version of a Turing test.

If I did do that in the Orr areas, I’d be there for a few hours at least.

Not to mention the fact that people misinterperet this information and use it to report people that are actually innocent and not a bot.

ANet should be responsible for keeping this game a bot free environment (alright it’ll never be 100% free, I accept this.)

They should not implement a blanket system to catch bots that effects all players in punitive ways. That’s totally wrong.

Bots are affecting me right now. They’re making me not want to log in, except with GW2 it’s a double-whammy.

1. I get punished by being made to play/farm how ANet dictates to me, as that’s their cost-effective way of removing botting.

2. It isn’t working very well and the bots are still here and very very prevalent and obvious in somewhere like Orr (specifically Cursed Shore) and their presence means I can very rarely tag the mobs before they die.

It’s such a mess.

Yeah, thanks a lot for implementing systems that affect real human players in such a punitive way for the sake of catching some Chinese gold farmers.

You’re cutting off your nose to spite your face with this one and all the backlash in the forums is firm evidence of this.

Sorry, but you’ve gone about this in a really really bad way and the fact all the places I visit in the Cursed Shore are still full of bots tagging everything I’m trying to tag and taking loot away from me, means that it’s not even working as intended or very well.

muthax.4720:

Apos.5184:

DusK.3849:

Apos.5184:

the original Guild Wars never became big

Four million copies sold and a higher population than WoW just before the release of MoP apparently means it “never became big” now.

Which part of original guild wars didn’t you get?

Any by the way, with 4 million copies sold, then it obviously didn’t have a higher population that WoW. Unless each copy is shared by 2-3 players.

WoW never had at its peak more than 3-4 millions in the West, the rest was asian (mostly chinese) ands they pay in a completely different way. Anyway, if you want to grind and farm there are plenty games out there that cater to those inclinations, GW2, like GW before, doesn’t. So… go play with the other kids? Just leave this game in peace.

With the severe punishing measures in place that is exactly where you’re headed right now with this game – a never-ending peace.

You’re welcome to it if nothing changes.

UndeadRufus.6832:

It’s dictatorial and quickly ensures the demise of a game shortly thereafter.

That must be why the original Guild Wars up and died.

Oh, wait….

That doesn’t mean this game won’t be affected.

Infact it is exactly that mindset and complacency that destroyed XIV. SE had great success with FFXI and it was a very very good game. People still complain about the UI to this day, which is a fair complaint, but not one that affects gameplay and/or your ability to play the game however you wanted to within reasonable guidlines.

Yes XIV had lots of other problems, other than a bad DR experience system idea.

So does GW2 right now.

There’s far too much wrong with it right now. It’s bugged so very badly. Bots are everywhere and the presence of bots severly restricts the amount of loot and rewards you can get in a busy DE, as they’re all sword swinging melees right at the front.

Tagging anything as a job that doesn’t have an AOE on very short cooldown is nearly impossible and very frustrating. That’s a massive imbalance right there. It will lead to an over-abundance of one specific class until this system changes.

Legendaries aren’t worth getting based on their look alone. A legendary weapon should be just that, legendary in that it has some stats that reward you for the massive time sink you went through to get it. It does not improve your character and in the case of weapons that aren’t very obvious or large, you’re not even going to see anything that looks massively impressive either.

Putting all this aside, just being complacent is enough for irreparable damage to occur in the first few months here that the game can never recover from.

There’s too much in this game that punishes players for playing the game. It’s far too punitive and restrictive.

This should never happen.

The DR is cheap and efficient in stopping bots.

Employing people to monitor the game and follow-up reports, costs lots of money and effort.

The unitended outcome is that it forces your population to play the way you tell them to play.

It’s dictatorial and quickly ensures the demise of a game shortly thereafter.

The very very worst idea you can have as a game developer is to devise and game, especially an MMO and then not only “encourage” your players to play how you think they should play, but actually force them to play the way you see fit.

It never works and the backlash will be too strong for them to leave it in.

It will get taken out eventually, it’s just a question of whether there will be enough people left when it does.

Go and ask Square Enix how well their foray into a DR system in FFXIV went. Their lead developer got fired and replaced, but the damage has been so immense and so lasting that it will never recover.

It literally went from a population of millions to a meagre thousands to tens of thousands in a period of a few weeks.

The devs there were adamant they would not take it out to their own detriment and game’s demise.

They did change their mind, but it was far too late.

The difference here is SE were relying on subs to pay their exstensive staff. ANet already have our money upfront, so as far as they are concerned whether you play or not anymore isn’t really important.

The in-game store has such a poor array of things to buy that’s its never going to turn a significant profit.

Even with a pay upfront game losing a massive percentage of your player base has long lasting damaging effects.

The DR will do this. I’ve seen it happen before.

There’s a precedent for it Red Falcon. Other games have tried similar systems that punish innocent players in such big ways that it destroys their population in such a short period of time that they can’t recover from it.

Take FFXIV, released to massive fanfare and right from the start it had a DR experience system, where you were punished as a player for playing the game longer than they thought you should.

SE were dictating to their player base how they should play the game and it really really annoyed people.

A leading Japanese game review magazine tore into SE and other magazines and online puplications followed suit. That’s unheard of in Japan. You really have to do something wrong to force the JP population to lose their cool.

The problem was by the time SE got around the taking the DR system out, they’d lost (and I’m not joking when I say this) millions of players.

It now has a population in the tens of thousands, if even that and it’s just in death’s waiting room ready to be put out of its misery. It will never ever recover from the worst idea in developer history.

You cannot have “placeholders” in this industry. It’s far too competitive for that. By the time you’ve got around to actually listening to what your player base is saying, they’ve already left and your game then just waits around to die.

As a developer the worst thing you can ever do to a gamer is say “Look I’ve made this game for you, but you’re going to play the way I have intended for you to play it.”

This philosophy has never worked and never will and there’s always massive backlash over it.

We’re not being dramatic at all, we’re raising a legitimate point that if something isn’t done to arrest this serious problem, there’ll be no game left to play.

There are easier ways to prevent botting and abuse of in-game mechanics if you really want to do this.

You need a dedicated team that can investigate reports and actually be pro-active about getting rid of botters and people who abuse the system.

That costs money, putting in a DR system is cheap and instant. The massive downside is, it’s a game killer.

Laying a blanket punishment that effects all players and forces them to play the way you intend is far too punitive and takes most of the fun out of the game.

It’ll be changed as people won’t be forced or cowed into playing the game someone else’s way.

Raising legitimate concerns is not drama. It’s raising legitimate concerns in the hope that ANet don’t let their game die before they find an alternative to the DR.

There’s no way this system will stay in forever.

It’s just a question of how fast they take it out. If they don’t act soon, sadly there will be little active population left to play with.

Seeing as it’s a pay-up-front game ANet could care less at the moment as they’ve already got all our money and the in-game store is a joke if you actually see what’s for sale there.

This fact means that they’re unlikely to move to change the game system soon.

It doesn’t look good at all.

At the moment you either die in the Orr areas as there’s no one doing that event ever.

Or there so many people doing the event, such as the trinity of camps and Grenth that whilst you might be earning Karma, forget even bothering to try and play tactically or skillfully, all you try to do is at least touch one mob before they’re all dead in seconds.

The type of zerg you see in Orr when it is busy is the most pointless gaming experience I’ve ever had. It puts me off playing in such a big way.

All of the above is taking into the consideration that Orr DEs aren’t bugged which they are for me, in some way or another, nearly all of the time.

Outside of this dungeons are tactical and allow for strategy, but my dedicated group of friends no longer play and a pick up group is such a lottery, where you lose nearly all the time, that’s it not worth it.

WvWvW is just zerg until stuff dies or breaks, unless you’re lucky enough to have a group still around that can all tolerate the ridiculous waiting times to access an area.

From a skill and tactics viewpoint, the only time I really get to flex my skill muscles is when soloing, which I can do in most places with consumate ease, but unless I’m moving around the whole zone I also get punished for this by the DR system.

So the only thing I can do, to make me feel like I am actually applying some skillful play is move around a PvE area in big circles, which gets extremely boring extremely fast, when every mob you come across is the same as mobs in other areas just with the addition of “risen” infront of its name.

You hit the nail on the head in your last sentence of your last post.

Money and profit is vastly more important these days. Long gone are the days of Blizzard North, Squaresoft et al, you now have Activision Blizzard and Square Enix.

Corporate behemoths that only care about a corporate profit, as quickly as possible, leads to the release of games being rushed and badly executed.

We’ve already paid upfront for this experience any further payments they get from us are just a bonus.

I’m sorry but the gameplay is utterly atrocious in this game. I’m so disappointed.

Orr is terrible for this.

It’s the only dedicated level 80 PVE zone and it’s constantly bugged.

Jofast’s WP, Arah Gate and other places to boot.

Not that any of this matters.

It’s either too empty that you could never take on the DE by yourself or if it is busy you have no chance of touching the mob unless you’re a melee class right at the front of the pack as everything dies instantly.

Orr is such a pointless place to visit at the moment.

It’s in ANet’s whole “mission statement/manifesto/whatever” that they try to be as different as they can.

For people to come here and then complain that’s it not enough like WoW, it’s like going on holiday to Dubai and complaining that the weather’s hot.

Yeah, it’s different, that’s why we’re here.

Ordika.9513
“They want the comfort of the WoW way of doing things, but don’t want to play WoW anymore.”

That’ll be the (upto) 10 year time investment some people have put in but can’t walk away from. What was it all for!?

These are games. You’re the fool if you’ve put in so much time that you can’t walk away from it. Normal people do that with women and mortgages, not with games.

That’s a little bit weird.

Vaerah.4907:

raype.6179:

Ugh. It’s hard to play with my inventory full of stuff I want to sell.
Anyways is there a good reason for it being down for almost 24(?) hours besides “maintenance”?

There’s at least 1 obvious exploit being heavily hammered right now (no I won’t say which it is because it’s really BAD to do on a forum).
Games like GW2 or EvE Online rely on their economy not being devastated by those exploits because they immediately turn into massive gems / PLEX damage and that damage directly maps on real money damage for the company.
This is why they bring the TP down at the first sign of something suspicious going on, they really lose money if they don’t.

So how much are your ANet & CCP salaries exactly? You obviously work for them.

Tell us when the BLTC is going to be back up instead of waxing lyrical about how they’re hemorrhaging money right now. (Yeah right!)

Or, stop wildly speculating. Conjecture just confuses people and leads to misinformation.

Vaerah.4907:

Nate.3927:

Zaron.1687:

These issues don’t seem to happen with other games. I beta tested and played SWTOR and never had the kind of problems i have had with this game. 6 years of development and this is what we get……

isn’t that more because nobody wanted to use it? since it was really really bad? SWTOR did not have this very specific problem true, but it had a lot of other problems unique to it.

Warhammer Online had their auction house daily crash for several months before they made it functional. It was 2 orders of magnitudes simpler to code than this one.

Oh did they? Well that makes everything OK then!

Saying “x” has done “y” as some form of defence isn’t going to wash.

“These planes used to crash a lot more frequently, so if the one we’re flying on now crashes, it’s OK and you’ll understand why.”

It was down for all my playtime yesterday. It is down when I log in now.

It’s an integral part of the game. I’ll just dump/vendor all the gear/mats/items I have shall I?

I’ll just stay out of pocket with faulty orders on the TP shall I?

It’s not acceptable.

If you want to be in a unofficial beta phase for several months then don’t bother on charging us for this content. It is not worth the money I paid. Not even slightly.

This is F2P standard at best right now.

The fact is I can play now. I’ve found workarounds for the TP/Mail and Forum issues, thankfully. I can live with the authentication issue.

As a game, when you’re in, it’s fantastic and I basically love every aspect of it. It’s very well thought out and put together. It’s what I’ve wanted an MMO to be. It negates all the nefarious actions of previous games and that is to be applauded.

The problem is, I very nearly never got to the stage of trying it. A more fickle person would have refunded a long time before I did.

And that’s the real shame here. That’s the main point I’m making.

I still believe there are issues within the game, big bugs, that are detrimental to the game’s ability to maintain a large amount of players. That’s what we all want isn’t it?

I know I do.

No I won’t shoot at anyone who makes a very coherent and sensible argument like you have.

I don’t suffer fools gladly, but you’re obviously not a fool!

1.) Yes, there really was no warning about emergency maintenance. Irrespective of how important it is, a 5 minute warning isn’t a difficult thing to do. There’s no real excuse for this. Nor the messages they give us regarding installation or connectivity problems and errors.

2.) I don’t insist on being there at day 1. Infact I haven’t even been in GW2 since day one. Of the MMOs I have played (and it’s a lot) I’ve been there for the release of 6 of them. I was only really saying this to say that I’ve seen a lot of releases and from my own personal experience GW2 was the worst for the reasons I gave in my OP.

All those problems happened within a 30 hour period. 36 hours includes my posting to the forums and getting my forum account active.

3.) I’m not demanding anything and you’re right; it’d be foolish of me to expect an MMO to be totally perfect when I open it. I’d be content if it were only gameplay issues of some nature. I didn’t experience that. I experienced quite serious faults that prevented me from having any play time in my first 30 hours.

I had to find workarounds for these, some unofficial and some using 3rd party software like CCleaner to make the game work. I’m an advanced software and hardware technician so that wasn’t really too arduous, others won’t have the same background in computing like we have.

That would really put other people off. That’s my main point there. New gamers are fickle and that can be detrimental to a company like ANet who aren’t top dog in this market.

4) What my ISP choose to do with my IP is their decision and if I didn’t say upto 7-8 times, then I meant up to 7-8 times. Still I re-iterate the point that even for 1 change of IP, very often the first 3 octets will stay the same and it’s the last octet (the last 1, 2 or 3 numbers depending) that changes. This forces authentication.

That’s overly aggressive and totally unnecessary. I can’t tell which octect number I’m going to get so I have to just save them all in the hope that all numbers from 1-255 will be saved? That’s just silly.

I could just be very unfortunate and had a combination of things happen to me at the same time, but still, of the 4 points I outlined in the original post, only the emergency maintenance downtime can I really brush off as “that kind of thing just happens in MMOs.”

The other points are glaring faults, IMO. Alright, maybe not the IP thing! It’s only trying to keep us secure and that’s a good thing. I don’t need the enhanced security, but I can see why users on shared units or those who are forgetful and abuse their computers, might need it.

Thanks for putting over a coherent point-of-view, much appreciated and I hope I answered your questions.

See, this is what a forum is for!

Chewie.7389:

@OP, you don’t like how they teased the game infront of us for the longest time telling us it’d release when it was done and then releasing it in shambles with numerous problems no different then other common botched mmo releases? And not just technical issues but gameplay, balance, and even billing issues? That’s totally unreasonable. And you wonder why complaint posts get censored.

^This. Exactly this.

They could have done it so right. It can’t be that difficult to arrange. There’s so many examples of bad releases to learn from. Maybe that’s the problem.

It appears that the censoring of negative feedback seems to be common of all major developers’ fora at the moment. Which isn’t right at all. We need to be able to complain.

Hide the complaints and it won’t make the problem go away, it’ll only exacerbate it.

As long as it’s warranted, coherent and not overly-ranty (definitely no swearing, think of the kittens!!).

Anyway, this post stuck, reinforcing the point that ANet might be willing to listen.

All I wanted to do is to give my experience from my first 36 hours and explain that if others are having a similar experience it could be very damaging for the game.

I’m an old hand at this and I can see what the devs. are trying to do. I think it’s excellent and there’s so much brilliantly right with this game.

However, the newer gamer has a tendency to be much more fickle. ANet runs the risk of losing a lot of people this way.

On reflection, it appears I was a victim of coincidence with the server maintenance issues.

That still does not answer 3 of my other points in the OP. All of which are really glaring problems IMO.

The biggest of which is having a message that states that OUR “router” or “firewall” is to blame for any downtime on their servers.

That’s very wrong. Not because it’s not correct or true, mainly because it’ll make lots of uninitiated users actually try to mess around with their routers and/or firewall.

And we all know where that leads!

(At least some IT guys will make some bank from that!)

That’s really the biggest point I want to put across.

You can’t keep blaming us, when it’s not us. It’ll lead to some serious issues.

RamzaBehoulve.5640:

While I understand your concerns, just keep in mind you are a very small minority with such problems at best. It’s unfortunate and really not cool for you guys, but well most of us don’t have problems…

So when you make the hyperbole that D3 was smoother when over half their player base was locked out is arguably quite laughable.

Again, I understand the frustration and you have every right to complain, but keep it real. Exaggerating will not make your point any better. Instead, people will laugh, discredit you and you’ll be even more annoyed. I know it can be hard to keep it clean with the amount of trolls around, but in my experience, keeping it mature and as close to facts as possible generally end up with a quicker solution and feedback.

Being locked out is one thing.

I can understand high server-load and yes, I could be angry at Blizzard for not having the server capacity necessary for the biggest game release of all time.

However, it was not hyperbole nor was I exaggerating.

It was smoother and I’ve stated the facts why. I have not exaggerated any of those facts.

I’m not using D3 as some shining example of brilliance to hold against GW2. I’m here because D3 got progressively worse from its acceptable opening.

Again, it seems to me, you thought “TL;DR, this guy’s a hyperbole speaking hater and that’s where I’ll be commenting from.”

That’s not the case at all.

I want the game to survive. I like it a lot.

I don’t think a culture of “no complaints” is healthy. It’s very unhealthy.

The argument, that hundreds of thousands of people affected out of millions is acceptable is a very very very bad business model to have. Get in that mindset and say goodbye to the product, shortly thereafter. A lot like ActiBlizzard.

They made a total mint from sales and now they can’t be bothered to back that up with decent CS and looking after their newer members and making sure it’s still a pleasureable experience.

D3’s community is dwindling faster than any other ARPG I’ve seen. It was and will always be one of the biggest failures in gaming that I can remember.

They shifted so many copies that it’ll never financially matter to them and they make that very obvious.

I don’t want that mentality to appear here. It’s such a good way of ensuring a game’s demise.

It definitely was not a good opening 36 hours for me and that’s the most impressionable part of a game for any user.

Fortunately this isn’t my first gaming experience. If it were imagine how I’d be feeling and how quickly I’d be trying to get my money back!

Daish.6139:

killimandros.5087:

If these boards represent close to the numbers of subscribers, seeing the first 4 pages on the tech problem consists of players having the same 2 problems (fps or bsod), I would be inclined to believe the percentage of users, is indeed a lot, higher. Actually, of the around 700 different posters inside these forums, only a handful seem to NOT be having any issues (whoch could of course be countered with “they play”, which is fair enough). Now, consider most gamers never even visit forums, and these forums are neither the easiest accessible either (I had to use guru for 3 months), I believe the representaged players with problems, indicate a HIGH percentage of the playerbase, to be experiencing problems. Then it is up to Anet to figure out what to do. Maybe theyve just ruled most of the ones not being able to log in, as people who have dropped out of the game? Possible. Maybe they rule out those having bsod-problems as lacking hardware, thus saving money by actually TRYING to solve the issue? Seems more and more likely. In the end, whatever "solution# Anet has decided to act up towards, it is very unlikely it is one in favour of the playerbase with the issues. I expect the tech forum page to go down for a week or two (easiest and cheapest way to handle “unsatisfied customers”), then the server-merges will start. After all, theyve received quite a lot of funds from the game, with small prospects of more, so its maintenance mode next.

And, actually. Talking about bad launch/after launch. Did anyone refer to The Secret Worlds launch? Best launch ever. NO problems, whatsoever.

most players in games like these do not go anywhere near the fourms its a very small number

the main reasons to head to the fourms is when you have a issue or are at work

Can you please stop talking like you’re an authority on the subject? You clearly are not.

Next you’ll be telling me your statistics on forum use come from a potato you found in a dream you had last week.

You’ve already said goodbye.

Are you going to say it again?

Who sources staff after they release a game? Stop talking like you know ANet’s business model.

Who releases a bug-heavy game, that’s already been through an Alpha and Beta?
(Trading Post blanking out, no Emergency Maintenance warning just shut off, connectivity issues with their server telling us our router or firewall is to blame, authentication emails on IP addresses that are different in their last 6 digits.)

The statment “thousand of players out of the millions who are still playing = acceptable loss” is the fastest possible way to destroy your game.

It’s a very defective mindset that will ruin any company. Especially one trying to kick-start a game in the most competitive online market that there is.

Not to mention the fact that you’re saying “thousands” like you work for them and actually have access to some figures.

It’s not a good point. It’s a bad point lazily articulated.

Manicpanda.5837:

Ronin.8095:

killimandros.5087:

If these boards represent close to the numbers of subscribers, seeing the first 4 pages on the tech problem consists of players having the same 2 problems (fps or bsod), I would be inclined to believe the percentage of users, is indeed a lot, higher. Actually, of the around 700 different posters inside these forums, only a handful seem to NOT be having any issues (whoch could of course be countered with “they play”, which is fair enough). Now, consider most gamers never even visit forums, and these forums are neither the easiest accessible either (I had to use guru for 3 months), I believe the representaged players with problems, indicate a HIGH percentage of the playerbase, to be experiencing problems. Then it is up to Anet to figure out what to do. Maybe theyve just ruled most of the ones not being able to log in, as people who have dropped out of the game? Possible. Maybe they rule out those having bsod-problems as lacking hardware, thus saving money by actually TRYING to solve the issue? Seems more and more likely. In the end, whatever "solution# Anet has decided to act up towards, it is very unlikely it is one in favour of the playerbase with the issues. I expect the tech forum page to go down for a week or two (easiest and cheapest way to handle “unsatisfied customers”), then the server-merges will start. After all, theyve received quite a lot of funds from the game, with small prospects of more, so its maintenance mode next.

And, actually. Talking about bad launch/after launch. Did anyone refer to The Secret Worlds launch? Best launch ever. NO problems, whatsoever.

^This to bring sanity back to this thread.

:( and here i was trying to bring some sanity to the thread

Lol Panda, you’ve been very sane and articulate. I agree with everything you say.

+1 x a Gajillion-Bazillion.

Manicpanda.5837:

PS I feel left out no one has given me a single +1 yet :P

Dude I’ve given you like 2-3 +1’s!

Dry your eyes mate!

ELminister.9873:

My only point in all of this is the complaining is not helping anybody. Not the game’s reputation (and im sure you all care about it coz you bothered to complain about it so it only means you like the game), not the people reading this, and certainly not yourselves. Not here to argue or make anyone mad. So best of luck to everyone lol. -kthxbai

No one’s mad.

Just surprised at the fact you’d make an estimate on the affected people world-wide based on my thread, which has only been up for an hour or so!

Anything you say after that doesn’t really matter mate as I can see how you think now.

No hard feelings too, but that’s the craziest thing I’ve heard all day.

P.S.

You can’t push for a world of no complaining. You don’t understand what complaining gives you as a consumer.

I feel trying to explain this concept to you would be the ultimate exercise in futility, so I won’t bother.

Ok, thanks, bye.

killimandros.5087:

If these boards represent close to the numbers of subscribers, seeing the first 4 pages on the tech problem consists of players having the same 2 problems (fps or bsod), I would be inclined to believe the percentage of users, is indeed a lot, higher. Actually, of the around 700 different posters inside these forums, only a handful seem to NOT be having any issues (whoch could of course be countered with “they play”, which is fair enough). Now, consider most gamers never even visit forums, and these forums are neither the easiest accessible either (I had to use guru for 3 months), I believe the representaged players with problems, indicate a HIGH percentage of the playerbase, to be experiencing problems. Then it is up to Anet to figure out what to do. Maybe theyve just ruled most of the ones not being able to log in, as people who have dropped out of the game? Possible. Maybe they rule out those having bsod-problems as lacking hardware, thus saving money by actually TRYING to solve the issue? Seems more and more likely. In the end, whatever "solution# Anet has decided to act up towards, it is very unlikely it is one in favour of the playerbase with the issues. I expect the tech forum page to go down for a week or two (easiest and cheapest way to handle “unsatisfied customers”), then the server-merges will start. After all, theyve received quite a lot of funds from the game, with small prospects of more, so its maintenance mode next.

And, actually. Talking about bad launch/after launch. Did anyone refer to The Secret Worlds launch? Best launch ever. NO problems, whatsoever.

^This to bring sanity back to this thread.

ELminister.9873:

Ronin.8095:

ELminister.9873:

tired of people complaining of every other issue on a game that’s barely a month old. They are doing everything in their power to fix the problems. Why even bother complaining? Do you think they wont fix it if you don’t complain?

@DaveK you laughing yet?

You haven’t read any of the posts at all. If you had you wouldn’t be saying what you are.

Read first and when you have….don’t post if you can’t add anything constructive.

You’re not making any form of coherent argument and “kthanxbai” was 2009-ish, I think.

And this 1% you’re throwing around like you have access to the figure and demographics.

Care to back this up with some proof? Yeah, you have none.

Facts are facts. I spent $150+ 36 or so hours ago. It’s been a total mess since then.

I don’t want my money back, I want the Alpha and Beta to not leave me with the option of buying a bug-filled game when I spend my hard-earned money on it.

Not trying to start an argument here. I am basing my 1% on the number of posts your thread has. Seems like 5 people having same problem? I only bothered to reply here because I’ve actually read your post. And frankly it looks random.

Your statistics on how many people are affected are taken from how many people reply to my post?

Are you high?

You’re too lazy to read the Tech forums and see the problems then.

Ergo, you have no worthy input and anything you’re saying isn’t going to be constructive if it’s based off these kinds of statistics.

That has to be easily the craziest thing I’ve heard all day. That is stand-up comedy worthy!

“I am basing my 1% on the number of posts your thread has. Seems like 5 people having same problem? I only bothered to reply here because I’ve actually read your post. And frankly it looks random.”

That’s either drugs or stupidity.

Please tell me you’re high.

ELminister.9873:

tired of people complaining of every other issue on a game that’s barely a month old. They are doing everything in their power to fix the problems. Why even bother complaining? Do you think they wont fix it if you don’t complain?

@DaveK you laughing yet?

You haven’t read any of the posts at all. If you had you wouldn’t be saying what you are.

Read first and when you have….don’t post if you can’t add anything constructive.

You’re not making any form of coherent argument and “kthanxbai” was 2009-ish, I think.

And this 1% you’re throwing around like you have access to the figure and demographics.

Care to back this up with some proof? Yeah, you have none.

Facts are facts. I spent $150+ 36 or so hours ago. It’s been a total mess since then.

I don’t want my money back, I want the Alpha and Beta to not leave me with the option of buying a bug-filled game when I spend my hard-earned money on it.

ELminister.9873:

return the game and stop complaining. Apparently only 1% of the population has this issues. kthxbai.

Because a world of no complaining would be such a good idea, wouldn’t it?

I’d definitely agree with what Dave’s saying here and forward you to my experiences in the last 36 hours after spending $150 plus for the CE & Official Guide.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/I-didn-t-think-there-could-be-this-much-fail/first#post172285

I don’t mind there being issues that need to be ironed out. Gameplay for example. Classes being OP or UP. Exploitable farming/crafting/xp methods that give you an unfair advantage.

These were not the problems I experienced.

This has been through an Alpha and a Beta and made it to release with some fundamental and glaring errors still in the game.

If you’re ingnorant of this, I’d advise you to read through the forums and see all the people suffering.

It’s not as black as white as you paint it Zaxan and I have been there for the release of 4 MMOs and 2 ARPGs.

For me personally, this has been the worst and the one redeeming feature is that there is currently no sub and no plans for the introduction of one.

More importantly, in this extremely competitive online gaming market, you need stability and a lack of fundamental connectivity issues. You need to make your product works properly before you release it on the market.

The most irksome problems that exist right now, for me, is that there is no warning of Emergency Maintenance and they just shut the servers off. ANet can’t give us 5 mins warning even, to get somewhere safe and prepare our chars for shutdown? Rubbish. They can, but they choose not to. For some bizarre reason, I can’t fathom.

Even worse, they proceed to blame our router and firewalls when THEY have connectivity issues (i.e. their servers are off).

Can you imagine how many people will try and mess with their router and break it? It’s a very easy thing to do.

All on the advice of erroneous and unnecessary information.

You don’t see the kind of impact these things can have on a game.

GW2 needs a population to survive the long-haul and to ensure there’s a game for you to play in the future. They can, as a development team, have all the money in the world.

It won’t matter if there’s no one left to play.

DaveK.1023:

Just one defender ? Disappointing. But whatever they lack in numbers they make up in lack of logic.

+1

Well said, Dave.

Daish.6139:

Manicpanda.5837:

Would you buy a car from a car company and be okay with it if all of a sudden stopped working and they told you it was an issue with how your driving it?

now your acting as if the problem is not being fixed but it is ? having a hard time understanding your logic

maybe because your not using any

Your is possessive.

You’re is a contraction of you are.

This cannot be explained away by dyslexia.

You were calling us kids were you? Be treated like one in return.

Your point is; I spent over $150 for something littered with bugs and issues and that is my fault and I should keep my mouth shut.

That’s not right in any way.

You’re not even being a fanboy, you’re just being quite stupid, in a public place. You know, where everyone else can read what you’re saying.

Daish.6139:

you kids do not seem to understand that this is a game you buy and no longer pay for

its not a service your paying for here they labeld this game as a MMO not a MMORPG

As already commented before, your insistence on referring to everyone here on this forums as “kids” negates any (incoherent) point you’re trying to make and make your post sound incredibly condescending.

Don’t forget lots of us here could be much older than you. (Which has already been said too!)

If you’re not going to say anything useful or constructive, don’t bother saying anything at all.

jtcoops.5987:

I have to say I have not had any of these issues you have reported here, been playing since beta. Sorry to hear your having issues but this has been the best start to a MMO I have been a part of including SWG, AoC, KotOR. Not saying this game does not have it’s share of issues either, there have been many, but from what I have seen since beta these guys get things fixed much faster than any other MMO I’ve played….. if that gives ya any hope.

Thanks for the feedback and I wasn’t implying that my experience would be the same for everyone. If you do have a quick peruse of the forums you will see that there’s lots of people that are having serious problems that are nothing to do with user hardware/software/connectivity.

It’s nice that you had such an uncomplicated and smooth ride thus far.

It’s just the fact that all of these faults and problems have happened in a 36 hour period that riled me up. That really is shocking.

Perhaps it was just a coincidence and I really was unlucky with my timing.

As I said, I’m willing to stick around and see things get better.

Thankfully there’s no sub, as I seriously would be re-considering now.

Knowing other people are having such a smooth ride fills me with some hope too!

Mistbooster.1803:

Ronin.8095:

“Now all we need is sit back and wait for the defense force to arrive. Flame shield up.”

+1

Batten down the hatche(t)s!

Ill jump out of the shield and back to get an extra flame shield orb going ;D

Haha!

Well it appears I can play now.

There’s still other issues that I referred to in my OP that aren’t addressed and will continue to bug other people.

It seems to be the thing nowadays, big development companies push for realeases too fast and set release dates that should be pushed back and what comes out is a mess.

It’s a horrible trend and the days of Squaresoft, Blizzard North are now long gone.

Corporate greed and mentality now reigns supreme and it causes massive issues like this.

All to bleed us dry.

Thankfully there’s no subscription fee with this. I’d have seriously refunded by now if there were.

Anyway, have fun and let’s hope there’s some stability over the coming months and they iron out all these blatant creases.

I’m willing to stick around to see it get better.

“Now all we need is sit back and wait for the defense force to arrive. Flame shield up.”

+1

Batten down the hatche(t)s!

The advertising was amazing. The videos from the devs were mouth-watering.

I couldn’t wait to get into Tyria to see how great the game is.

Turns out it was all hype and there’s been little planning and/or forethough before actually deciding to realease the game.

Here’s the issues I’ve had:

1.) I could not access the forums, I tried to accept the T&C’s but I got a “rare” error accusing me of being a bot. Great.

I had to d/l CCleaner, a 3rd party program, to effectively clear my cache, just to get this to work.

2.) Maintenance today and the extreme problems that are following it.

It would make sense to me to take MORE time than you anticipate to fix a problem. Take 2-3 hours, make it right, check that it’s right and then make the game live again.

You clearly broke something, didn’t check and re-opened the game anyway.

Now we suffer as a result.

The most annoying aspect of this is that you give NO warning prior to the servers going down for emergency maintenance. You just switch them off. The connection error messages tell us that it’s our router’s or firewall’s fault. I know it’s not, but there’ll be loads of people out there that have tried to mess with the router. Almost definitely in a detrimental manner.

Having that connection error is irresponsible and not factually correct in any way. That needs to be changed.

Say the servers are down. If they are. Do not blame us or our equipment.

3.) I constantly have to authenticate my IP address via e-mail, the first 6 digits in my IP never change. I have a dynamic IP. The latter digits in my IP are going to change every day. I should not be prompted for an authentication every time this happens. My ISP sometimes change my IP 7-8 times a day.

4.) The Trading Post and Mail function broke down on me several times. I had to find an unofficial workaround on this forum, as there’s no official one.

I had to change the language, click through other TP trading tabs, then change the language back. Inefficient to say the least and utterly ridiculous that I find hundreds of people in the same position as me (on the forums) yet it has not been addressed by ANet in any way.

I’ve had such an incredibly lack-lustre start to this game.

It’s incredibly disappointing and to be frank, D3’s well-documented nightmare of a release was much much smoother than this.

Your ardent fanboy will say it’s teething problems and it’s to be expected. Give it some time. Give them some leeway.

I bought the CE, with the PDF guide for a pretty penny.

I’m the customer paying ANet money, not the other way around.

You have Alpha, Closed Beta, Open Beta for a reason. They’re not play time.

There’s so many fails in my first 1 and half days, it’s really really taken me aback. I never thought any game could be this incompetent.

There’s so many things that need fixing.

Lastly, I know if I’m frustrated, unimpressed and massively underwhelmed (fanboys aside) most of the rest of the population will be.

If you want to keep any semblance of a decent active population you cannot continue to push the game forward in such a shambolic way.

Here’s to hoping you actually listen and see where the problems are and move to fix them before most of the people have left.

N.B. From what I’ve seen and played of the game, it has fantastic potential. I really like what I have seen.

That’s not enough to offset the amount of money I have spent and the repeated failures.

Therein lies the problem.