Guild Wars 2

Can anyone confirm this? And if they actually said that, then why does the leaderboard still say:

Updated 5/25/15 4:45 PM PST | Next Update 5/25/15 5:45 PM PST

When/where did they say that? I didn’t see it in the “Thanks for participating in the Second Ladder Test Season” blog post.

So, is there a point to playing ranked?

The leaderboard hasn’t updated in the 24+ hours that I’ve been watching it. Is that normal?

So, it looks like some of us have decided this is working as intended?

Evan’s posts seem to imply otherwise. Am I misinterpreting this comment:

Is this a per-player problem? Or is the entire leaderboard frozen for periods of time?

Because if the entire leaderboard was supposed to be frozen (due to the test ladder season ending), why would he be asking about it like that? Wouldn’t he instead say, “Yeah, it’s not updating because PvP is over”?

I don’t know, we didn’t know anybody else on the team.

The weirdest part was that it didn’t just disconnect. The whole client crashed. I don’t know what would cause that, but I wouldn’t expect a network issue to make it happen like that. If that was the case, and their whole team stayed connected because they were from the same region, I would have expected that to have been more likely if they were a pre-made team. And since we were stomping them prior to that and we were mostly just randoms, I think it’s even less likely.

TL;DR: Our entire team crashed at the same time, but nobody from the other team did. Foul play suspected but not proven.

I was playing in unranked tonight (9:49 CDT), and my team was winning in Legacy of the Foefire (something in double-digits to 140). Suddenly, my game client crashed to the “Send details to ArenaNet” box (naturally, all I managed to type was “wwww”). At the same time, I heard my wife (also on my team) shout, “Oh, no! I crashed!”

It turned out that everyone on our team crashed simultaneously. Nobody from the opposing team disconnected, and by the time we reconnected, they had captured all three points and were dancing.

So, is this a thing that happens now? I’ve never seen anything like it.

Screenshot attached. For dev/QA use, I did the “/ip” command and got 64.25.38.114:0. It was at 9:49pm Central Daylight Time on 4/26/2015.

I loved the way our characters have voices again. It’s even better than before, too— an NPC told me to burn some tendrils, and I heard myself reply (something to the effect of) “I’ll get right on it!” And this wasn’t even in a cinematic!

I didn’t make a revenant, so I didn’t experience all that the stress test had to offer. I did like the gliding (though I spent some time trying to make the glider go higher with only one rank in the mastery), and I loved the Pale Reaver rifles. I want a stack of them in consumable form. But then, I guess that would be overpowered against a ton of bosses…

Gaile Gray.6029:

I have tested a lot of games over the years … StarCraft …

I like the way you worked your gamer cred into that post. Well done!

I see. His account name displayed as “Gern.2978,” so I never understood what the big deal was. His first post said,

Why is my name “Formulates Cat Maps?”

and since his display name wasn’t “Formulates Cat Maps” at that time, I assumed he was referring to a character name and that the account name issue was a separate complaint.

I apologize for the confusion. Now that I know he would rather have “Gern” as a display name than “Formulates Cat Maps,” I have a much clearer idea of the problem.

Gern.2978:

“Seamus McPlatofart.” Yes, I am aware of how stupid that sounds, and that is why I have requested to change it multiple times, and every time I am denied. But now A-net changes my name to this! So it is a thing they are capable of doing, they just don’t want to change it to a name I want apparently.

JustTrogdor.7892:

RoyHarmon.5398:

Did you already know about the Name Change Contract? Because that would have solved your problem.

If you wanted a specific name, you could have it by paying $10 in gems. If you wanted an awesome name provided by Customer Support, then I suppose you went about it the right way.

The OP’s issue was with their display name, not a character name. Display names are only changed if they are deemed inappropriate or give away personal info such as using their real name or email. Since the OP self-reported their own inappropriate display name it was changed and the OP was eventually allowed to select their own, a rare exception.

Name change contracts only work for character names.

It sounds like he actually wanted both.

Did you already know about the Name Change Contract? Because that would have solved your problem.

If you wanted a specific name, you could have it by paying $10 in gems. If you wanted an awesome name provided by Customer Support, then I suppose you went about it the right way.

twisted fate.7251:

RoyHarmon.5398:

I just had to stop by to say that for me, at least, this patch had the exact opposite effect.

I’ve seen an increase in graphics performance.

alright for some aha

I guess I should add a few basic system specs…

• Intel i5-4670K @ 4.2GHz
• 2x AMD Radeon HD 7870
• 8 GB RAM (G.Skill) @ 2133MHz
• Windows 7 x64

I always play with V-sync on, so all I can say is that I stayed between 40 and 60 FPS before the patch with character models and quality set to “lowest” and “medium,” respectively. Now I was able to bump it up to “medium” and “high” at the Frozen Maw (when it was part of the daily, no less) and still get 38+ FPS. Even with the lower settings, I used to get a bit less than that in such a big crowd.

I just had to stop by to say that for me, at least, this patch had the exact opposite effect.

I’ve seen an increase in graphics performance.

I just want to go on record expressing my profound disappointment at what happens when you forge one of each of the totems of the four Spirits of the Wild (the accessories available from their respective Task NPCs/karma vendors).

You really missed an opportunity there, folks.

Arioch.7432:

same problem here. very annoying…. my longsword skin sucks.

If you’ve already unlocked the skin on your account (i.e. you’ve used it before), then you can apply it for free from the wardrobe screen in the [H]ero panel.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Atherakhia.4086:

How would the server know what’s useless siege or not? What’s to stop the trolls from destroying valuable siege?

If it is a flame ram is anywhere but a gate? …

I know it’s not the most efficient use of resources, but on Borlis Pass, I’ve had fun defending gates with a flame ram placed on the inside.

I can imagine the flame ram skills could also be useful on top of a wall under fairly specific circumstances, and although that clearly wasn’t the intention of these players, I think it would be heavy-handed to restrict siege weaponry to a few designated areas.

If there are other options for addressing this issue, I think they would be better on principle. I remember how much less fun things became when I could no longer use my consumable weapons in dungeons, for instance, though I understand the reasoning behind it. Siege weapons currently have the potential to be used creatively and cleverly, and when the player uses them so, they can be very effective. Restricting locations (more than they already are, of course) could definitely make them less fun.

But then again, I’m the kind of guy who would build a ballista on top of one of the barns in a supply camp if given the option. Or maybe inside one of the buildings… then I would have a teammate lure people into my trap! See? My creativity is being thwarted already. Just think of how much more mundane it could become.

I got one of these and put the GW2 files on it. That worked pretty well for me. Now I can easily copy the data file to new computers, and since it’s USB 3.0, copy times are fast on USB 3.0 ports. Read times are great, too, so it’s a good option on a computer with a slower (read: non-SSD) hard drive.

Granted, that may not be what you’re looking for at the moment, since you probably want something quicker than the shipping time. In that case, try any >16GB flash drive you might have handy. Or another hard drive…

I had a hard drive fail once when the first symptom was an inability to stay connected to our dial-up internet. Apparently, the modem drivers were written to the worst of the bad sectors.

It looks like your GW2.dat file is probably on the bad sectors (which seems pretty plausible when you realize just how big the file is). So if you opt to run GW2 from another hard drive, be sure to re-download it. Don’t try to copy it from the failing disk, or you’ll just end up with a corrupted data file (and all the weird errors that come with it).

I don’t know if this has been mentioned elsewhere in the 24 pages of this thread, but…

I think the personal story rewards should be revisited. It feels weird getting a level-8 greatsword from a story step that only unlocks at level 10.

MarkPhilips.5169:

Justin, what have you changed in matchmaking for the new patch?

I’m also interested in hearing this.

The last time I checked, I think my win record in the Unranked Arena was 3 out of 35 or so. It makes sPvP really unpleasant, especially given that my tournament win percentage in the old system was pretty close to 50% (I think). I’m not great, but I didn’t think I was that horrible, and now I walk into each match expecting to be humiliated.

I would have expected to see some more appropriate matches after a while. Is this due to that bug you mentioned that inflated some players’ MMR early on? Because if the system was trying to find me some less skilled teammates in order to compensate, that would explain most of the matches I’ve played.

Josh Davis.6015:

style.6173:

Only thing better would be a finisher that has an engi dropping a turret on you and then doing the mad king laugh.

How did our plans for this leak out? There’s a mole!

Pretty sure they’re called dredge.

What I mean is, doesn’t the megaserver system make all worlds in a region run on the same hardware (if it didn’t already)? And in that case, wouldn’t “world fullness” basically be the percentage of players who are identified with that world for WvW purposes?

And if the population is indeed so evenly distributed as the world selection screen would have us believe, then why would they all be “very high” instead of, say, “medium” or even “high”? That would allow for a potential imbalance caused by new players coming in, current players transferring, etc., so that the lower-population servers to be classified as “low” and the higher ones could be upgraded to “very high,” right?

Or if it’s “very high” because the servers can’t handle much more before they reach maximum capacity, then why the big push for new players recently? Shouldn’t they upgrade the hardware before they try to max it out?

So the most likely scenario I can think of is that they want to encourage population balance in WvW (which is now the only aspect of the game affected by world choice), but to keep the current equilibrium, they had to discourage transfers by (1.) making all world populations look the same and (2.) charging a ridiculous amount for transfers.

So, there you go. I think the “very high” is an artificial rating, and while making them all say “high” or “medium” may be more accurate (though still not necessarily a reflection of actual distribution), it would allow us to move around more freely because it would cost far fewer gems.

Very high compared to what?

I’d like to change servers, but they’re all “Very High” ($22.50).

Are they actually separate servers, hardware-wise? Because if they’re not, and they’re all sharing the same hardware, then the fact that all North American servers are currently “very high” doesn’t mean anything, does it? It just means they’re all close enough to the same that ArenaNet can call them all the same thing, and they chose “Very High” because it describes the price they want to charge?

It’s annoying, because I want to transfer to a lower-tiered server along with my wife, but to move both of us it would cost $45. That’s more than the game itself costs!

Is there a reason the price is so high? Are they just trying to strongly discourage server transfers right now? Because if every single world is “Very High,” then they really need to expand their server capacity.

Are they just trying to impress the new players? I can’t imagine that working out well. “Oh, wow. This game must be AMAZING!!! Every single server is VERY HIGH!!!” Well, no, I’d better stop there. I don’t want to derail this with the “New Player Experience” and its implications for the New Player Intelligence.

TL;DR: Why is the transfer fee so high? And is it coming down?

Yes! I’ve also had my miniatures resetting, so it may be related. Hopefully in fixing one, they’ll fix the other as well.

I’ve noticed this problem, too. You’re not alone. It’s kind of annoying after getting used to the previous functionality (which was awesome).

Do you think they’ll change it so that the personal story UI element is fully integrated with the content guide and doesn’t show up when “disable personal story” is selected?

Okay, that’s pretty useless.

The only time my Personal Story would be showing up in the “Content Guide” is when I’m standing right next to the location of the next step, right? Otherwise, there’s always going to be something closer, usually an event.

Vayne.8563:

RoyHarmon.5398:

Right… So, what does it do? Because I haven’t noticed it doing anything differently when I have it set to “default.”

Default means all the options are on. It points to PS and zone completion. Turning it off removes it. The other options specificy what it does and doesn’t point to.

No, I mean… The “Hide personal story” option. What’s the difference between “default” and “hide personal story”? Because I see no difference whatsoever. It’s not hiding my personal story, so what does that option do?

Right… So, what does it do? Because I haven’t noticed it doing anything differently when I have it set to “default.”

Is this working properly?

As you can see in the attached screenshot, I have it set to “Disable Personal Story” but the Personal Story is still showing up on my screen.

You mean like the toxic (heh) alchemist thing in Kessex Hills?

I always try my hardest on that event chain. We’re the heroes of Tyria, not the Consortium.

Though it’s not such a problem in sPvP, I really wish neutral mobs (the ones with yellow names) weren’t targeted except by deliberately clicking on them.

I know there are reasons to attack them in PvE (certain Tasks/Renown Hearts, for example), but in the overwhelming majority of cases, I’ve found it’s just a frustrating delay in cycling through to the hostile target that’s already attacking me. If I hit “target nearest” when something is attacking me, I shouldn’t get some yellow moa and have to tab through all the other yellow moas around the hostile target before I can choose it. If I want to attack a moa, I could click on it.

Just my suggestion. I hope you like it. A lot.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Some people who have been banned buy new accounts, and would then, possibly, have their chosen character names available, again, if this were not the case.

I don’t see any reason why this would be a bad thing, though. I mean, they have to have names, right? And if the names themselves were the reason for the ban, then they would presumably be censored, wouldn’t they?

Honestly, I’m amazed that anyone is able to pick a good name anymore. I made a new character a couple of weeks ago, and you wouldn’t believe how many names I tried before I found something that would work.

FYI: If you’re trying to name a sylvari, don’t bother with any of the Wikipedia lists of poisonous or medicinal plants, or the scientific names of any of the genera or species that sound even remotely like a sylvari-like name. I tried for over an hour, but I eventually had some luck by adding “la” to ‘Myristica’. I also tried a great many Irish names, but they were all taken.

While there are obviously some decent names still available if one is original enough (or doesn’t mind adding extra letters to a name that someone else already claimed), the pickings are undeniably becoming slimmer by the day. As more people purchase the game or buy character slots, more names are taken. Sure, some are released when characters are deleted, but either that character will reclaim the name or it will take another name that isn’t already claimed, which pretty much cancels that out.

The fact is, there is a large but finite number of good names. As time goes by, the number of unclaimed names (however large) grows smaller. I see the list of “Final answer: No, you botted and weren’t hacked, your account is dead” posts continuing to grow, too. I think we could mitigate the potential name shortage by releasing the names of characters on accounts that have irrevocably been terminated.

I was wondering, what happens to the character names on accounts that have been terminated? If a character with a name like “Captain Tightpants” is banned for botting, is that name effectively removed from Tyria forever? Or is the name made available somehow?

I can imagine (since I read about it regularly via your Twitter and Dev Tracker posts) a player coming back to the game after several months, only to find that they’ve been banned for botting or gold selling because their account was hacked while they were away. As I understand it (and of course I don’t have firsthand experience), the player’s account is usually eligible for a rollback once they’ve addressed their security issues; if the character names were made available while the account was terminated, there would be some obvious issues.

However, I also see a lot of:

771796 – Final Answer: The account was closed for the use of a disallowed third-party program. It was not hacked by an unknown third-party; the termination will not be reversed.
765913 – Final Answer: The account was closed for the use of a disallowed third-party program. It was not hacked by an unknown third-party; the termination will not be reversed.
780117 – Final Answer: The account was closed for the use of a disallowed third-party program. It was not hacked by an unknown third-party; the termination will not be reversed.
787289 – Final Answer: The account was closed for the use of a disallowed third-party program. It was not hacked by an unknown third-party; the termination will not be reversed.

Please note:

• Responses flagged as “Final Response” will not be reviewed again.

Is that a different situation? Are character names freed to find new, loving homes, or are they sadly put down removed from circulation?

The reason why I did the whole “redownload” thing is because it sounds like much of the problem could arise from corrupted data files on the local client. That is, when your computer starts to load a specific map, it finds invalid data (i.e. doesn’t match what it should be), and for whatever reason it decides it must be a connection issue. It’s kind of like the game client is double-checking with the server, finding a mismatch, and interpreting it as, “We must not have heard you clearly. Probably a bad connection.”

For others (like myself), it could be a specific character/creature model or something instead of the map itself.

Of course, this is all just conjecture on my part, but it sounds reasonable to me.

However, the facts that it’s so widespread and sporadic, and that it has been happening occasionally to some folks (again, like me) ever since the game launched, usually after an update, suggest to me that it could be more of an issue of an archive corrupted by the patching process. If I had to wager a guess, I’d say unstable overclocking could play a part in some cases, since it could lead to integration of bad values during the patch process.

I don’t know why it would be so prominent right now, though, unless it’s because the new Living Story changes aren’t just adding more data (maps, creatures, etc.), but altering more of the current areas, yielding more opportunities for the (non-draconic) corruption to arise.

EDIT: It’s also very possible that there are multiple problems causing the same error message. If the explanation in my first paragraph is accurate, it would suggest that the 7:11:3:191:101 error isn’t very exclusive.

To clarify my earlier post, I was apparently able to fix the problem for me by:

1. Deleting Gw2.tmp.
2. Launching Gw2.exe, but closing the launcher before auto-play finishes counting down.
3. Renaming Gw2.dat to Gw2_bak.dat.
4. Launching Gw2.exe.

Once the Gw2.dat file had been downloaded again (I left it running overnight), I had no more issues. I couldn’t get the files to download at first, but when I added in the Gw2.tmp steps, it seemed to work just fine. Once you’re satisfied, I recommend deleting Gw2_bak.dat.

I tried this because in the past, a “stuck” character could often be fixed with the “-repair” command, especially if it happened soon after a large update. I tried to repair the files, but it stayed at “0%” for an hour and crashed when I tried to close it. I decided there must be something wrong with my data archive, so I renamed it (in case I needed it, which I did for Step 2 above) and tried a fresh download.

This may not work for everyone, but it certainly seems to have worked for me. I’ve gotten two daily rewards with it so far, and no more disconnects. My wife did the same thing, with similar results (though if she had asked me, I would have simply copied the file to her computer).

I haven’t disconnected at all since I deleted the Gw2.dat file and downloaded it fresh. I was going to try the -repair command, but it kept freezing and crashing when I tried.

Yeah, see, my characters aren’t stuck… I can play for a minute or two, and then I lag out and get the 7:11:3:191:101 error. I can switch to another character, play for a minute or two, and get the error again.

It’s really annoying, because that first couple of minutes gets my hopes up. Then it disconnects again. And because the same thing is happening to my wife next to me, I get to hear about it, too.

If you guys are seeing Error 7:11:3:191:101, check this thread.

Tregarde.6031:

BobbyStein.2315:

…Because of the PC’s assumed rank in an organization that deals in fighting dragons, and that such knowledge isn’t really a secret (but isn’t widely known as characters in the world have no reason to openly discuss it until now)

Even if we can’t all be The Commander, many of us DO play members of the Pact and/or the Orders. Or our characters know people in the Pact/Orders. The Elder Dragons have been a huge topic of conversation among many. I think it only makes sense that anyone who’s been interested in the topic, or even just been around when others have been talking about it, would have heard the name.

That would explain why all the NPCs knew about it, since they know the PCs (who, as we recently learned, know all about Mordremoth).

The question is, why didn’t the player know it? Have we not been spending enough time around our characters lately? Is this a hint, ArenaNet?

courin.2314:

I think there’s a chance that it might not BE a bug, but instead an ‘easter egg’ of sorts to demonstrate that Mordremoth is interfering with the waypoint system.

Time will tell.

I think it’s a bug that may, with some effort, be perceived as an Easter egg.

shadow.6174:

@Must Kill.3826: in your case the number on Hero panel is being showed in green, what means it’s being affected by some buff or bonus then it wouldn’t match with the other value anyhow. However, in these cases it would be expected the number on Hero panel to be higher than the one on Achievements panel (your normal MF plus buffs or bonus). In this case, yes something seems to be wrong.

Actually, it does that any time you’re scaled down. I had to travel specifically to a level-80 area to take the screen shots in my original post, but I only did that to avoid any doubts regarding the cause of the problem.

As you can see in the following screenshot, downleveling doesn’t appear to have an effect on magic find.

Also, it’s important to note that the food buff (+26%) still appears to be applied, whereas the achievement bonus does not.

To clarify, it should be as follows:

120 base luck + 9 achievement bonus + 26 food bonus = 155% magic find.

Instead, it is:

120 base luck + 26 food bonus = 146% magic find.

The stats section of the Hero Panel shows the wrong Magic Find number. It used to show the player’s total magic find, but now it only shows the amount gained from luck consumables.

As you can see in the attached screenshots, my account should have a total of 129% MF, but the Hero Panel UI only shows 120% (the amount gained from luck consumables). I don’t know about guild bonuses or other boosters, but the achievement point bonuses don’t seem to apply.

I have no way of knowing whether this is purely a UI bug or if it actually has an effect on item drops.

This is a fairly common occurrence for me and my wife, as well. You’re not the only one experiencing this. I suspect it’s a collision issue with the vine being too close to the spawn point.

Solandri.9640:

RoyHarmon.5398:

Part of it is that it seems to use a fixed pixel number, so it’s more noticeable for smaller/distant objects. Observe the attached screenshots.

In the third image, the bloom is actually wider on each side than the object (is that some kind of coral?) itself is. That’s just too much.

That is actually how bloom works in RL cameras. The width of the bloom is proportional to the brightness of the object relative to the background, not its size.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_%28shader_effect%29

The only reason it bugs me is because bloom (and lens flare) are defects in real-world cameras. As a photographer I’ve tried my best to eliminate them unless I specifically wanted it for artistic reasons (e.g. bloom in portraiture). It strikes me as highly ironic that 3D renderings (which have “perfect” virtual lenses) are introducing defects to make things look more “realistic.”

I play with post-processing turned off for this reason. But I too would appreciate separate options for color tinting (helps to smooth out some of the unrealistic color uniformity in rendered images), or a way to dial back the bloom.

Cool. I’m not a photography buff, so I didn’t know that. Thanks.

I’ve tried RadeonPro and SweetFX settings in the unlikely event that it might help, but unsurprisingly, that didn’t work.

I came here to post exactly this. I love the tinting effects and some of the blurring, but honestly, the bloom is just ridiculous. It’s not always awful, but it often is. Part of it is that it seems to use a fixed pixel number, so it’s more noticeable for smaller/distant objects. Observe the attached screenshots.

In the first image, it doesn’t look so bad.

In the second image, it’s beginning to look a bit odd.

In the third image, the bloom is actually wider on each side than the object (is that some kind of coral?) itself is. That’s just too much.

Nihilus.3015:

I assume that means we know the water dragons name too

They call him Bubba.

Bubba Licious.

pdavis.8031:

CureForLiving.5360:

pdavis.8031:

Also Belinda dies!?!?!? Thanks for the spoiler…. :P

Welcome to the lore forum

I was being sarcastic :P I made sure to stay away from the lore forums until I had a chance to actually play the story. I don’t like spoilers :P

I thought it was funny because as I read your post, I was thinking, “Hey! Spoilers!” Even though I had read the books.

Hey, you guys are forgetting… It doesn’t have to be in a future episode. It could be in this one if they correct it, and then when we play through it again, we’ll get it the way it should be. And then future players wouldn’t have to play through an episode or two wondering how in the world they knew that name, only to have it explained in a later episode.

It’s easy to revert to the “after two weeks the content is gone forever” mindset that we’re used to, but things have changed. The past isn’t just the past anymore, and if they fix this episode, it will really fix it.